Appeal No. 1998-1512
Application No. 07/993,783
the page directory, when the TLB is pre-loaded the information that is placed into the TLB
is information that has been previously saved from a “prior execution” of the task.
Appellants argue that the pre-loading of Bryg is not from page table entries “saved
from a prior execution of [the] task,” as required by Claim 3. “To the extent that Bryg
teaches a control means for preloading, it preloads page table entries constructed at the
time of a desired preload.” (Brief, page 4, emphasis omitted.) Appellants flesh out their
position in the Reply Brief:
[Bryg] does not involve a page table entry saved from a prior execution of the
task. Rather, it involves a page table entry used during a current execution of
the task and possibly reused during that same execution of the task after
once being flushed from the TLB. [Bryg] provides no disclosure of task
switching or what occurs in the event of a task switch.
(Reply Brief, page 2.)
Thus, there does not appear to be any dispute with respect to what the reference
discloses. The controversy relates to the proper interpretation of the claim -- whether the
claim includes within its scope the structure described by Bryg.
Claims are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation during prosecution,
and the scope of a claim cannot be narrowed by reading disclosed limitations into the
claim. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997);
In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re Prater, 415
F.2d 1393, 1404, 162 USPQ 541, 550 (CCPA 1969). With these guidelines in mind, we
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