Appeal No. 96-0905
Application No. 08/116,950
remedying this deficiency in Kolb), the instant rejection under
35 U.S.C. § 103 should not be sustained.
We would not sustain the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 if
interpretation of the instant claims required that the leading
CPU, as disclosed by Kolb, be part of the claimed “plurality of
CPUs.” However, since the instant claims are open-ended, because
of the “comprising” recitation, it is a fair interpretation to
read the instant claims on the disclosure of Kolb with the
consideration that all of Kolb’s CPUs, other than the lead
processor, comprise the claimed “plurality of CPUs.” Then, of
course, after the “preselected” count is established by the lead
processor upon randomly receiving the interrupt request and
storing the specific location in the program at the time of the
interrupt, all of the other CPUs, i.e., those belonging to the
claimed “plurality of CPUs,” will be subject to being interrupted
“responsive to a selected count...for separately interrupting
each CPU at an identical instruction execution cycle.” The way
appellants’ “multiple CPU system” is set forth in the instant
claims, it allows for extra CPUs (e.g., Kolb’s lead processor)
not part of the claimed “plurality of CPUs” and, therefore, not
subject to the specific limitations laid out for each of the
“plurality of CPUs” in the claims.
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