Appeal No. 2003-1030
Application No. 08/820,181
Appellant argues that both Davidson and Periwal do not teach appellant’s
“fairness.” (Brief at page 8.) Appellant further argues that the serializing of Davidson
does not teach appellant’s “fair” or “FIFO” order or “next. . . . in line” order. This
argument is not persuasive since it is not commensurate with the scope of the language
of independent claim 1 which requires “one-by-one in order of request” which we find to
be taught by Periwal. We find that the use the mutex and release of the mutex to the
“next waiting thread or process acquires the mutex and proceeds with its processing”
(Periwal at column 4, lines 3-5) teaches the one-by-one in order of request since the
claim does not further limit the order of the requests or that the order is stored so as to
assure the order is maintained. Additionally, we find that Periwal teaches that the “next
sleeping thread may be awakened and granted the mutex.” (Periwal at column 11, lines
56-58.) Therefore, we find that Periwal teaches maintaining some sort of order so as to
awaken the next tread in a sequence or order.
Appellant argues the order is not defined with the mutex of Periwal and therefore
does not assure fair order. (Brief at pages 9-10.) As stated above, we do not find that
claim 1 requires “fair order” and do not find that fair order is necessarily FIFO order
since many factors may dictate fairness in a wide range of systems. Therefore, this
argument is not persuasive. Appellant argues that Davidson teaches the use of an OS
based system where the order of acquisition is undefined which causes thrashing and
that Periwal does not teach fair or FIFO ordering of threads. (Brief at pages 10-11.)
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