Appeal 2007-2127
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,621
may be a natural language such as English, instead of a formal programming
language, which was omitted in filing the 1994 application as filed.
Lastly, the Examiner rejected many claims as impermissibly enlarging
the scope of the '604 patent claims.
The most important issue is claim interpretation: what are the
definitions of "threads" and "multithreading"? Based on this interpretation,
the next issue is whether the '604 patent is entitled to priority of the 1982
application filing date. If it is not, Patent Owner does not contest the
anticipation rejection over the 1988 Krantz reference describing OS/2. Our
conclusion is that the 1982 application does not provide a written description
of "multithreading" as defined in the '604 patent and the art, i.e., Patent
Owner is mistaken in his understanding that "multithreading" describes his
disclosed invention. Accordingly, the '604 patent is only entitled to its 1994
filing date and the 1988 Krantz reference is prior art. The anticipation
rejection over Krantz and several of the obviousness rejections are affirmed.
The anticipation and obviousness rejections over De Jong are reversed
because De Jong does not teach "multithreading" for the same reasons the
1982 application does not teach multithreading.
We also conclude that Patent Owner is not entitled to amend the '604
patent to add subject matter which was omitted from the parent 1990
application because this would add new matter. The '604 patent does not
provide written description support for limitations dealing with words and
sentences of a natural language, such as English, and spelling and grammar
checking of words and sentences of a natural language. However, most of
the written description rejections are reversed.
Lastly, the rejection for broadening is reversed.
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