Appeal No. 2003-1240
Application No. 09/304,964
paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the
subject matter which applicants regard as the invention.
The recitation of “the receive port” in lines 2 through 3 of independent claim 13
lacks proper antecedent in the claim. Moreover, claim 13 is, at the least, misdescriptive
of the disclosed invention. The claim recites that “a data queue representing each of
the receive ports is assigned with at least one of the time slots.” Appellants state (spec.
at 13) that a single rules queue 102 may be assigned to each receive port of the IMS
(integrated multiport switch) 12, but the same paragraph also refers to “multiple rules
queue 102.” The paragraph explains that rules queues 1 to 12 are provided for 10/100
MAC ports 1 to 12, a rules queue 13 may support gigabit MAC port 24, and a rules
queue 14 may be assigned to expansion port 30. As described at pages 14 through 16
of the specification, IRC scheduler 104 (Fig. 4) arbitrates between the rules queues 102
to allocate time slots in each scheduling cycle. There is no clear disclosure of “a” single
data queue that represents “each” (i.e., all) of the receive ports. Nor is it
understandable how such a data queue might be assigned with “at least one” of the
time slots consistent with the remainder of the method set forth in claim 13. The scope
of the claim is thus indeterminate.
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