Appeal 2007-2127
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,621
3. '604 patent's definition of "multithreading"
The 1994 application was the first of Patent Owner's four applications
to define "multithreading" in the original application:
The term "multithreading" is used in this specification in its ordinary
generally understood sense to mean the concurrent asynchronous
preemptive time-sliced execution of a plurality of threads of
instructions located within the same software program, controlled by
a clock or timer which periodically activates the interrupt operation of
the central processor. That is, each interrupt preempts an executing
thread after the thread has executed at most for a brief timeslice
during which the thread may have performed only a portion of its
task. Control of the processor is thereby taken away from the
preempted thread, and control then passes to an interrupt service
routine which then passes control to another thread to invoke the latter
for execution during the next timeslice. Control is thereafter returned
to the preempted thread to enable the latter to resume execution at the
point where it was previously interrupted. The term "multithreading"
in each claim is to be understood as defined by the respective
limitations reeked [sic, recited] in that particular claim.
The operation termed "multithreading" provides that control of
the processor is thus transferred repeatedly back and forth between the
threads so rapidly that the threads are run substantially
simultaneously. The threads may thus execute incrementally and
piecewise with their successive task portions executed alternately in a
mutually interleaved relation and with each thread executed during its
respective series of spaced timeslices interleaved with the timeslices
of at least one other thread. [Emphasis added.]
Now at '604 patent, column 1, lines 27-53. This definition is consistent with
the ordinary meaning in the art as of the 1994 filing date.
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