Appeal 2007-2127
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,621
(1) each is interruptible; and (2) each thread must have a thread context
which is stored when the thread is interrupted.
There are only two possibilities for threads in the 1982 application:
the compiler and the editor. The editor is not interruptible. Since the editor
is not interruptible, it does not have a context that is saved and retrieved.
Therefore, the editor does not have either of the attributes of a thread. Since
there is only one thread, the compiler, this is not multithreading. A thread is
more than just a series of program instructions. This is the same reasoning
applied by the district court in finding that the '603 patent does not disclose
multithreading. See Reiffin v. Microsoft, 270 F. Supp. 2d at 1142 ("The
written description of the invention [in the 1990 application] neither
expressly nor inherently discloses that the editor is a thread. The system
described, which contains only one thread, the compiler, cannot be
interpreted as a multithreading system, as the term 'multithreading' is defined
in the '603 patent."). The Examiner adopts the reasons stated by the district
court (Final Rejection 73-74 ¶ III.4). The '603 and '604 patents and the 1982
and 1985 applications all share the same "Detailed Description," so there is
no written description support for "multithreading" in the 1982, 1985, or
1990 applications. Accordingly, the '604 patent is not entitled to the priority
filing date of the 1982 application.
d. Even if the editor was interruptible
there is no multithreading
For the 1982 and subsequent applications to teach "preemptive
multithreading," as that term is defined in the art, the editor would have to be
interrupted (preempted) to return control of the CPU to the compiler before
74
Page: Previous 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013