DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-11, 13-19, and 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Papworth et al. (US Patent No. 5584038), hereinafter referred to as Papworth, in view of Kegel et al. (US Pub. No. 2015/0186240), hereinafter referred to as Kegel.
Referring to claims 1, 22, and 23, Papworth discloses a processor-implemented method for managing a queue comprising: accessing a circular queue, wherein the circular queue comprises a plurality of entries, wherein the circular queue includes a head pointer and a tail pointer, wherein the head pointer comprises a head wrap bit and a head index, wherein the tail pointer comprises a tail wrap bit and a tail index (allocator receives requests for storing data in entries of the circular buffer…circular buffer entries…the head pointer includes a wrap bit. …tail pointer is generated, including the wrap bit, col. 2, lines 10-20; NOTE: “head pointer (Headptr) indicates…tail pointer (Tailptr) identifies” teaches the head and tail indexes, col. 8, lines 25-30), and wherein the head pointer and the tail pointer move independently in a single direction within the circular queue (head pointer is incremented by the ROB allocation unit 220 with each entry allocation. The tail pointer is incremented by the ROB 120 with each retirement or deallocation by retirement logic 140; col. 8, lines 25-35); selecting, by a software agent, an entry within the circular queue, wherein the entry is associated with an index (to allocate entries in the circular buffer, the allocator generates speculative addresses for each of the requests by utilizing the head pointer as a base address, col. 2, lines 20-30); interpreting a validity of the entry, wherein the interpreting is based on the head wrap bit, the tail wrap bit, the index, the head index, and the tail index (a match between one of the speculative addresses and the tall pointer, col. 2, lines 25-30; If the tail pointer and the head pointer match and contain equivalent wrap bits…If the tail pointer and the head pointer match and the wrap bits are different, col. 8, lines 50-55); and returning, by the circular queue, to the software agent, an invalid signal, wherein the entry is not modified, and wherein the entry was interpreted, by the interpreting, as invalid (If three empty slots are not available, then the allocator 112 asserts ALstall, col. 8, lines 60-65).
While Papworth indicates the circular buffer provides capabilities for speculative execution and teaches managing requests to selected entries in the circular buffer, Papworth is silent regarding the specific of source reads, and therefore does not appear to explicitly disclose the entry request as a read.
However, Kegel teaches managing validity of read entries (entry 204-5, which is the first invalid entry, [0030]; the software reads, and thus consumes, an entry 204, it consumes the entry at the head of the circular buffer 204 (i.e., the first valid entry 204, [0032]).
Papworth and Kegel are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, managing circular buffers.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of Papworth and Kegel before him or her, to modify the circular buffer system of Papworth to include the entry consuming of Kegel because read requests are a common operation performed on circular buffers, and Papworth and Kegel demonstrate that the prior art included each element claimed, although not necessarily in a single prior art reference, with the only difference between the claimed invention and the prior art being the lack of actual combination of the elements in a single prior art reference; one of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the circular buffer request handling elements of Papworth and the entry read functions of Kegel, as claimed, by known methods, and that in combination, each element merely performs the same function, as it does separately, of managing requests to circular buffer entries and handling reads involving a circular buffer; and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the resulting combination of circular buffer read request handling was predictable.
The rationale to support a conclusion that the claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. KSR, 550 U.S. at 416, 82 USPQ2d at 1395 (MPEP 2143.I.A).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Papworth and Kegel to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim.
As to claim 2, the combination of Papworth in view of Kegel discloses sending, by the circular queue, to the software agent, data within the read entry, wherein the read entry is not modified, and wherein the read entry was interpreted, by the interpreting, as valid (Kegel: the software reads, and thus consumes, an entry 204, it consumes the entry at the head of the circular buffer 204 (i.e., the first valid entry 204), [0032]). The rationale to combine remains as indicated above.
As to claim 3, the combination of Papworth in view of Kegel discloses calculating that the head wrap bit is equal to the tail wrap bit (Papworth: If the wrap bits for the head pointer and tail pointer are equivalent, col. 8, lines 55-60), the read index is greater than or equal to the head index, and the read index is less than the tail index (Papworth: allocator sequentially assigns entries for the requests located between the head pointer and the tail pointer, col. 2, lines 20-25; Kegel: fig. 2, the read of entry 204-2 is equal to head pointer 206-4 and less than tail pointer 206-1). The rationale to combine remains as indicated above.
As to claim 4, the combination of Papworth in view of Kegel discloses computing that the head wrap bit is not equal to the tail wrap bit (Papworth: the wrap bits are not equal, col. 9, line 65) and the read index is greater than or equal to the head index (Kegel: fig. 2, the read of entry 204-2 is equal to head pointer 206-4 and less than tail pointer 206-1). The rationale to combine remains as indicated above.
As to claim 5, the combination of Papworth in view of Kegel discloses assessing that the head wrap bit is not equal to the tail wrap bit (Papworth: the wrap bits are not equal, col. 9, line 65) and the read index is less than the tail index (Kegel: fig. 2, the read of entry 204-2 is equal to head pointer 206-4 and less than tail pointer 206-1). The rationale to combine remains as indicated above.
As to claim 6, Papworth discloses writing, by a hardware agent, an entry in the circular queue (corresponding execution unit writes the result data, the architectural flags, and any fault information in the appropriate physical destination entry in the ROB, col. 7, lines 5-15).
As to claim 7, Papworth discloses the hardware agent comprises a processor core (microprocessor; col. 2, lines 35-50).
As to claim 8, Papworth discloses the writing is based on the tail index (the tail pointer, generated by the ROB 120, is input to the allocator…the allocator 112 determines whether three entries, one for each micro-op, are available…subsequent ROB 120 buffer writes, col. 9, lines 1-20).
As to claim 9, Papworth discloses setting one or more information bits (Each Pdst in the ROB 120 contains a valid bit…a set of flags and a corresponding mask, a code, and fault data; col. 5, lines 55-60).
As to claim 10, Papworth discloses the one or more information bits include a type of data (Each entry in the RS 115 stores…micro-op instruction code, col. 6, lines 50-55; type of micro-op, col. 9, lines 10-15).
As to claim 11, Papworth discloses the type of data is Upon execution of the micro-op…writes the result data…in the appropriate physical destination entry in the ROB 120, col. 7, lines 5-15).
As to claim 13, Papworth discloses the type of data is a message (Each entry in the RS 115 stores…micro-op instruction code, col. 6, lines 50-55; micro-ops corresponding to the decoded macro instruction specify the equivalent function, col. 5, lines 10-15).
As to claim 14, Papworth discloses incrementing the tail index (ROB 120 increments the tail pointer, col. 9, lines 1-5).
As to claim 15, Papworth discloses adjusting the tail wrap bit (allocator toggles the wrap bit, col. 2, line 15), wherein the incrementing causes the tail index to point to a top of the circular queue (the tail pointer and the head pointer match, col. 8, lines 50-55).
As to claim 16, Papworth discloses the selecting includes advancing, by the software agent, the head index by one or more positions in the single direction within the circular queue (head pointer is incremented by the ROB allocation unit 220 with each entry allocation, col. 8, lines 25-30).
As to claim 17, Papworth discloses restricting the head index, wherein the restricting prevents the head index from moving past the tail index (If the tail pointer and the head pointer match and the wrap bits are different, then the ROB 120 buffer is full, col. 8, lines 50-55).
As to claim 18, Papworth discloses adjusting the head wrap bit (allocator toggles the wrap bit, col. 2, line 15), wherein the advancing causes the head index to point to a top of the circular queue (Each time the ROB allocation unit 220 traverses the entire circular buffer, the ROB allocation unit 220 toggles the wrap bit; col. 8, lines 40-45).
As to claim 19, the combination of Papworth in view of Kegel discloses the selecting comprises a read of the read entry within the circular queue (Kegel: the software reads, and thus consumes, entry 204, it consumes the entry at the head of the circular buffer 204 (i.e., the first valid entry 204), [0032]). The rationale to combine remains as indicated above.
As to claim 21, Papworth discloses the software agent comprises a program running on a processor core (microprocessor contains an instruction fetch and decoder circuits for issuing and decoding instructions, respectively, in the program order; col. 2, lines 40-45).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Papworth in view of Kegel, as applied to claims above, further in view of He et al. (US Pub. No. 2009/0249356), hereinafter referred to as He.
As to claim 12, while Papworth teaches an all or nothing allocation policy, Papworth does not appear to explicitly discloses the type of data is atomic data.
However, in a similar endeavor of managing a circular queue, He teaches the type of data is atomic data (the comparison in processing block 334 would indicate that the queue contains at least one valid queue entry and so the consumer thread is permitted to perform an atomic read operation from an aligned entry in the circular queue, [0032]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of Papworth, Kegel, and He before him or her, to modify the circular buffer system of Papworth in view of Kegel to include the atomic reads of He because the atomic access scheme would reduce overhead and improve performance.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to reduce overhead in queue access and achieve performance levels (He: [0014])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Papworth, Kegel, and He to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Papworth in view of Kegel, as applied to claims above, further in view of Pan et al. (US Patent No. 6539469), hereinafter referred to as Pan.
As to claim 20, the combination of Papworth in view of Kegel does not appear to explicitly disclose the selecting comprises a speculative read of the read entry within the circular queue.
However, in a similar endeavor of managing a circular queue, Pan teaches a speculative read of the read entry within the circular queue (Rotate buffer 24 is organized as a circular, wrap-around buffer…The speculative read of the buffer is performed by reading out four consecutive bundles, col. 3, lines 15-35).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of Papworth, Kegel, and Pan before him or her, to modify the circular buffer system of Papworth in view of Kegel to include the atomic reads of He because the speculative reads would maximize the data supply.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to maximize throughput.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Papworth, Kegel, and Pan to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The US Pub. No. 2008/0072015 of Julier et al. and US Patent No. 7779307 of Favor et al. are pertinent to managing circular buffer entries.
The examiner has cited particular column, line, and/or paragraph numbers in the references as applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in its entirety as potentially teaching of all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
The examiner requests, in response to this office action, support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line number(s) in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting the application. When responding to this office action, applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections. See 37 C.F.R. 1.111(c).
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Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ERIC T OBERLY whose telephone number is (571)272-6991. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 800am-430pm (MT).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Dr. Henry Tsai can be reached on (571) 272-4176. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ERIC T OBERLY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2184
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