Appeal No. 2004-1558
Application No. 09/283,386
Small, simple, basic instructions that a computer is capable of executing.
Sets of microinstructions might make up macroinstructions or microprograms.
Microinstructions, even sets of them, might be permanently wired or built in
and so are executed automatically. In variable logic computers, different
combinations of microinstructions or microoperations, can be programmed.
In most modern computers, microinstructions are not used and the
macroinstructions are wired in.1
Thus, since microinstructions may make up microprograms, it is not
unreasonable to find that microinstructions may make up an “executable program,” as
broadly recited in the instant claims, and as determined by the examiner. However, that
being said, the claims call for more than a mere “executable program.” For
example, claim 1 must “capture, in a memory as an executable program, hardware-level
instructions generated. . .in response to basic rendering functions called by a graphics
application program running in a host operating system,” and then define those
captured hardware-level instructions as an executable program to the host operating
system, wherein the hardware-level instructions are captured in the memory separate
from the host operating system.
The examiner admits that Devic lacks a teaching of the “defining” step of the
independent claims and relies on OGL to supply this teaching. We agree that OGL
teaches that once a display list is created, it can be executed by calling a specified
name and the display list can be executed “many times” (OGL-page 127). However,
1Martin H. Weik; Standard Dictionary of Computers and Information Processing; Hayden
Book Company, Inc., New York; copyright 1969; 3rd Printing, 1970; page 188.
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