Appeal No. 2001-2326
Application No. 08/752,909
(Answer at 9-10) that “M” is a number added to the accumulated earnings, as shown in
the equation in column 6, line 33 of the reference.
The instant specification (p. 9, ll. 14-16) relates that “[a]n Earnings of a job is the
accumulated time a job has purchased and spent while on the VMP [virtual
multiprocessor] queue and is stored as the accumulated_time variable.” The definition
is consistent with use in the claims. Instant claim 1, for example, recites that “earnings”
are apportioned to each of the jobs “based on time each job spent in a queue
requesting execution on a processor.”
In view of the express requirements of the instant claims, we fail to see how
Mueller may be deemed to teach adding a number to accumulated earnings for each
job as a function of earnings apportioned to each job, and selecting a job for execution
as a function of accumulated earnings for each of the jobs. As suggested by
appellants, Mueller’s teaching is that, after each processing interval, priorities of the
various competing processes are recalculated. Col. 2, ll. 30-38.
Further, consistent with appellants’ position, Mueller discloses that “M” is the
highest value of priority, rather than a number to be added to accumulated earnings.
Mueller’s algorithm, principally described at columns 4 through 7 of the reference, does
take into account whether a process is waiting for processor resources, as opposed to
executing. As depicted in Figure 3, priority increases while waiting for processor time,
and decreases while running. Further, as shown in the formulas in columns 5 and 6,
-4-
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