Appeal No. 1998-0706
Application 08/166,279
multiprocessor system connected to the receiving cluster
module (id. at ll. 44-51). The cluster module of the sending
processor notes the selected direction and replaces the
routing information with the number of the sending cluster:
If the packet is destined for a processor within
a different cluster, the sender cluster number
contains routing information. The cluster module,
in turn, examines the routing information,
determines which direction the packet should be sent
from this information, and then replaces the routing
information with the sender cluster number. [Col.
9, ll. 56-62.]
If a processor, having sent a transmission, fails to receive
an acknowledgment within a specified time interval, software
in the sending processor will send the transmission again and
then wait once more for the specified time interval, with the
successive transmissions being switched through the two
cluster modules and through both of the possible directions
around the ring (col. 10, ll. 35-43). Thus, if any one of the
four possible paths from a processor to another processor is
functioning correctly, the message can be transmitted (col.
10, ll. 43-46).
Bione is cited by the examiner as evidence that it would
have been obvious to move the direction determination function
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