Appeal No. 2005-1995 Application 09/133,741 lines 46-47). Assume there are two buffers, Buffer 1 and Buffer 2. The output list of vertices from the Initial State in Buffer 1 is copied to the input list in (initially cleared) Buffer 2; Buffer 1 is cleared; the clipping routine generates vertices in the output list of Buffer 2; the output list from Buffer 2 is copied to the input list is Buffer 1; Buffer 2 is cleared; and the process repeats. It is possible to copy the output list to the input list by overwriting the input list, but this also does not act like a circular buffer. Sutherland states (page 735, first col.): Perhaps the most important applications of micropipelines will involve operations in which the vector length changes. One such example is the clipping operation widely used in computer graphics. The clipping operation removes the parts of a set of objects that lie outside a reference window. Clipping may result in an increase or decrease in the number of objects in the set. Because whole objects may be removed, there may be less output than input, but because connected edges may also be broken into multiple pieces, there may also be more output than input. Such a clipping device with very simple interface characteristics can be built using the micropipeline framework. Although appellant states that "[t]his passage certainly does suggest the use of circular buffers in connection with clipping operations, but does not suggest COMBINING two conventional circular buffers into one" (Br12), we find no mention of circular buffers here. However, Sutherland earlier stated that "one can build a ring-buffer FIFO whose interface characteristics are the same as those of the micropipelined FIFOs of Figure 15 or Figure 16" (page 732), and this suggests that micropipelines, linear or - 6 -Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007