Appeal 2007-2127
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,621
interrupt service routine is not interruptible. Patent Owner argued in the
California civil action that the editor in the '603 patent (which has the same
"Detailed Description" at the '604 patent) is capable of being interrupted. In
the appeal, Patent Owner appears to concede that the editor is not
interruptible, but argues that a thread does not need to be interruptible.
Nevertheless, we discuss why the editor is not interruptible because it is not
certain that Patent Owner will not change his position and because it will
help explain why the 1982 application does not disclose multithreading.
Patent Owner argued that the sentence in the 1990 application that
"For most applications clock interrupts at about every 10 to 30 milliseconds
should be frequent enough to keep up with keys stroked," implies that the
editor must be interruptible. See Reiffin v. Microsoft, 270 F. Supp. 2d
at 1140-42. The district court found that the sentence did not suggest that
the editor was interruptible because the plain meaning is just what the
sentence says, and "[t]he reasonable inference to draw is that, if such an
interval of time is inadequate, then the period between interruptions can be
adjusted accordingly, e.g., to 50 milliseconds." Id. at 1142. The district
court also concluded that "[t]he plain reading of the sentence is further
bolstered by the fact that there is no express provision within the description
for the saving and retrieving of the context of the editor, as required by the
court's construction of the term 'thread.'" Id.
We agree with the district court's reasoning. In addition, we agree
with the Examiner's reliance on Zaks, Programming the Z80, pages 500-502,
for technical reasons why the editor, as disclosed, is not interruptible. The
'604 patent (and the 1990, 1985, and 1982 applications) discloses a system
utilizing a Z80 microprocessor (e.g., Figure 2). We compare the description
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