Appeal 2007-2127
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,621
Multithreading, concurrent execution of multiple threads, is described
in Young, Programmer's Guide to OS/2, page 19:
[A] single process can consist of multiple concurrent threads. A
thread is simply the execution of a series of instructions in a program.
Processor time is divided among all active threads. Thus, several
sections of a single program can run simultaneously. For example, a
spreadsheet program could have one thread reading date from the
user, another thread performing a recalculation, a third thread
updating a display of the time and keyboard status, and so on.
Figure 1.6 illustrates the structure of a protected mode process. Note
that the process begins with the execution of a single thread. Any
thread can start additional threads, and the process terminates when
the last thread stops running.
The vertical dimension of Figure 1.6 represents time. At a given time,
when two or more threads are each executing at some point between its
starting and finishing point (shown by the arrow) they are said to be
"concurrently executing"; note that at one period in time, all four threads are
concurrently executing. Note that threads can start and finish anytime
during the execution of the main Thread 1.
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