Trials@uspto.gov
`571.272.7822
`
`
`Paper No. 18
`
` Filed: July 22, 2015
`
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`____________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`____________
`
`APPLE INC., HTC CORPORATION, HTC AMERICA, INC.,
`SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO. LTD,
`SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA, INC., and
`AMAZON.COM, INC.,
`Petitioner,
`
`v.
`
`MEMORY INTEGRITY, LLC,
`Patent Owner.
`____________
`
`Case IPR2015-00172
`Patent 7,296,121 B2
`____________
`
`
`
`Before JENNIFER S. BISK, NEIL T. POWELL, and KERRY BEGLEY,
`Administrative Patent Judges.
`
`BEGLEY, Administrative Patent Judge.
`
`
`
`DECISION
`Denying Request for Rehearing
`37 C.F.R. § 42.71
`
`Apple Inc., HTC Corporation, HTC America, Inc., Samsung
`
`Electronics Co. Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and Amazon.com,
`Inc. (collectively, “Petitioner”) timely filed a request for rehearing
`
`
`571.272.7822
`
`
`Paper No. 18
`
` Filed: July 22, 2015
`
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`____________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`____________
`
`APPLE INC., HTC CORPORATION, HTC AMERICA, INC.,
`SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO. LTD,
`SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA, INC., and
`AMAZON.COM, INC.,
`Petitioner,
`
`v.
`
`MEMORY INTEGRITY, LLC,
`Patent Owner.
`____________
`
`Case IPR2015-00172
`Patent 7,296,121 B2
`____________
`
`
`
`Before JENNIFER S. BISK, NEIL T. POWELL, and KERRY BEGLEY,
`Administrative Patent Judges.
`
`BEGLEY, Administrative Patent Judge.
`
`
`
`DECISION
`Denying Request for Rehearing
`37 C.F.R. § 42.71
`
`Apple Inc., HTC Corporation, HTC America, Inc., Samsung
`
`Electronics Co. Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and Amazon.com,
`Inc. (collectively, “Petitioner”) timely filed a request for rehearing
`
`
`
`IPR2015-00172
`Patent 7,296,121 B2
`
`(“Rehearing Request”) of our decision denying institution of inter partes
`review of U.S. Patent No. 7,296,121 B2 (Ex. 1001, “the ’121 patent”).
`Paper 17 (“Req. Reh’g”). Specifically, the request seeks rehearing of our
`determination to deny institution of inter partes review of the following
`asserted grounds of unpatentability:
`Challenged
`Basis
`Claim[s]
`1–3, 8, 11,
`12, 16, 19,
`20, and 22
`
`Reference[s]
`
`7
`
`9
`
`§ 102 The Directory-Based Cache Coherence Protocol for
`the DASH Multiprocessor, in THE 17TH ANNUAL
`INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON COMPUTER
`ARCHITECTURE 148 (1990) (Ex. 1005, “Stanford
`DASH”)
`§ 103 Stanford DASH and ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES,
`INC., HYPERTRANSPORT TECHNOLOGY I/O LINK
`(2001) (Ex. 1018, “HyperTransport”)
`§ 103 Stanford DASH and JOSÉ DUATO ET AL.,
`INTERCONNECTION NETWORKS (1997) (Corrected
`Ex. 1007, “Duato”)
`§ 103 Stanford DASH and MICHAEL JOHN SEBASTIAN
`SMITH, APPLICATION-SPECIFIC INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
`(1997) (Ex. 1008, “Smith”)
`Req. Reh’g 1–2. For the reasons given below, we deny the Rehearing
`Request.
`When rehearing a decision whether to institute inter partes review, we
`review the decision for an “abuse of discretion.” 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c). “The
`burden of showing [the] decision should be modified lies with the party
`challenging the decision.” 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d). The request for rehearing
`“must specifically identify all matters the party believes the Board
`misapprehended or overlooked, and the place where each matter was
`previously addressed in” the petition. Id.
`
`17–24
`
`
`
`2
`
`
`
`IPR2015-00172
`Patent 7,296,121 B2
`
` In our Decision, we agreed with Patent Owner that Petitioner had not
`
`shown sufficiently that Stanford DASH discloses, teaches, or suggests a
`“probe filtering unit . . . operable . . . to transmit the probes only to selected
`ones of the processing nodes with reference to probe filtering information
`representative of states associated with selected ones of the cache
`memories”—as recited in claims 1 and 16, the independent claims of the
`’121 patent. Decision Denying Institution of Inter Partes Review (Paper 16,
`“Dec.”), 11–14, 18–19. We explained that Stanford DASH discloses a
`system that uses two cache-coherency protocols: a “‘bus-based snoopy
`scheme’” to maintain cache coherency “‘within a cluster,’” and a
`“‘distributed directory-based coherence protocol’ to maintain ‘inter-[cluster]
`cache coherency.’” Id. at 7–8 (quoting Ex. 1005, 148). Further, the
`directory board of the home cluster in Stanford DASH—which Petitioner
`identifies as the recited “probe filtering unit”—consists of various
`subsystems, including: (1) the pseudo-CPU, which “‘issu[es]’” incoming
`read and read-exclusive “‘requests on the cluster bus,’” and (2) the directory
`controller, which “‘contains [a] directory memory’” and which
`“‘forward[s]’” requests to “‘the remote cluster that has a dirty copy of the
`data’” when the requested data block is in the “‘dirty-remote state.’” Id.
`at 9–11 (quoting Ex. 1005, 150, 152); Ex. 1005, 150–53, Fig. 3–5.
`In analyzing the relevant limitation of claims 1 and 16, we recognized
`the function of the directory board of the home cluster, particularly its
`directory controller subsystem, “to filter [read and read-exclusive] requests
`in sending them to another cluster” as part of the directory-based coherence
`protocol. Dec. 14. Yet because, as part of the bus-based snoopy protocol,
`the pseudo-CPU subsystem issues the “requests on the cluster’s bus[,]
`
`
`
`3
`
`
`
`IPR2015-00172
`Patent 7,296,121 B2
`
`without consulting the directory memory in the directory controller to filter
`the requests,” we were not persuaded that Stanford DASH discloses, teaches,
`or suggests that the directory board of the home cluster (“the probe filtering
`unit”) is “operable to transmit the[] requests (‘probes’) only to selected
`clusters (‘processing nodes’) based on the directory memory (‘probe filtering
`information’).” Id. at 12–14.
`
`In its Rehearing Request, Petitioner does not dispute that the directory
`board of the home cluster in Stanford DASH issues read and read-exclusive
`requests on the home cluster’s bus. See Req. Reh’g 4–5; Pet. 24. Instead,
`Petitioner argues that we “misapprehended the Petition’s application of
`[Stanford] DASH to the language of claims 1 and 16.” Req. Reh’g 8. In
`particular, Petitioner contends that our reasoning in the Decision “fails to
`appreciate that the Petition explicitly excludes the home cluster from the
`recited ‘plurality of processing nodes.’” Id. at 5. Petitioner argues that the
`Petition indicates that in Stanford DASH, the clusters other than the home
`cluster may act as local clusters with respect to the home cluster, and that
`these other clusters correspond to the recited “plurality of processing nodes.”
`Id. at 5–6. According to Petitioner, under this mapping of the elements of
`Stanford DASH to the claim terms of the ’121 patent, Stanford DASH
`satisfies the claim language. Id. at 7–8.
`
`We disagree. Even if the “plurality of processing nodes” excludes the
`home cluster, we are not persuaded that Stanford DASH discloses, teaches,
`or suggests a “probe filtering unit . . . operable . . . to transmit the probes
`only to selected ones of the processing nodes with reference to probe
`filtering information,” for the reasons stated in our Decision. Because the
`directory board of the home cluster (“probe filtering unit”)—specifically its
`
`
`
`4
`
`
`
`IPR2015-00172
`Patent 7,296,121 B2
`
`pseudo-CPU subsystem—issues read and read-exclusive requests (“probes”)
`on the cluster’s bus, it transmits these requests to the bus and, thus, to other
`processors within the home cluster. See id. at 7–14; Ex. 1005, 148, 150–53,
`Figs. 3–5; Paper 11(“Prelim. Resp.”), 23. It, therefore, does not “transmit
`the probes only to selected ones of the processing nodes with reference to
`probe filtering information.” Ex. 1001, 31:1–7, 32:7–16 (emphasis added);
`see id. at 28:49–53 (“If . . . the directory lookup determines the cache line
`may be cached in the system (2010), the PFU [probe filtering unit] sends out
`a probe only on links corresponding to the nodes that may contain the cache
`line (2014).”) (emphasis added); Prelim. Resp. 15–19, 23–25. Petitioner’s
`arguments to the contrary improperly seek to read “only” out of the claim
`language and to overlook the function of the pseudo-CPU in the directory
`board of the home cluster in issuing requests on the bus.
`
`In conclusion, we are not persuaded that the Rehearing Request
`identifies any “matter” that our Decision “misapprehended or overlooked.”
`37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d). Nor are we persuaded that we abused our discretion in
`denying institution of inter partes review of claims 1–3, 7–9, 11, 12, and
`16–24 of the ’121 patent.
`
`ORDER
`
`
`
`Accordingly, it is:
`ORDERED that Petitioner’s Request for Rehearing Pursuant to
`37 C.F.R. § 42.71 (Paper 17) is denied.
`
`
`
`5
`
`
`
`IPR2015-00172
`Patent 7,296,121 B2
`
`PETITIONER:
`W. Karl Renner
`Roberto Devoto
`FISH & RICHARDSON P.C.
`P.O. Box 1022
`Minneapolis, MN 55440-1022
`(202) 783-5070
`ax@fr.com
`IPR39521-0007IP3@fr.com
`
`PATENT OWNER:
`Jonathan D. Baker
`FARNEY DANIELS PC
`411 Borel Avenue, Suite 350
`San Mateo, CA 94402
`(424) 268-5210
`jbaker@farneydaniels.com
`
`Bryan Atkinson
`FARNEY DANIELS PC
`800 S. Austin, Suite 200
`Georgetown, TX 78626
`(512) 582-2836
`batkinson@farneydaniels.com
`
`
`
`
`6
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