Appeal 2007-2127
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,621
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to
implement the lexical and syntactic analyzers in Nitta as a thread or threads
of a multithreaded program, for the known advantages of multithreading,
such as allowing the system to do useful work while waiting for input from
the operator. Where a new programming paradigm comes along, such as
multithreading, one of ordinary skill in the art would be expected to apply
these new techniques to old programs as a matter of routine.
Patent Owner argues that nothing about Nitta lends itself to the
concurrent operation of the claims because "Nitta is simply a sequential
batch process, taking text in one language, that was previously entered into
memory, and translating it into another language" (Br. 76-77).
Again, one of ordinary skill in the programming art would have been
motivated to apply multithreading to older, non-multithreaded programs, for
the known advantages of multithreading. Krantz indicates that writing
multithreaded programs is within the level of ordinary skill in the art.
Patent Owner argues that Krantz teaches away from the claimed
combination at pages 98-114 because "[t]he OS/2 reference cautions against
using two threads that actually process data in the same process—let alone
incorporate the complexity of spelling or grammar checking—because of the
concern that the two threads might interact in some unexpected, and possibly
destructive, way" (Br. 77).
A reference "teaches away" when it states that something cannot be
done. See In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553, 31 USPQ2d 1130, 1131 (Fed. Cir.
1994). Krantz only indicates that programs should be designed to avoid
destructive interference between threads, but does not state that multiple
threads should not be used. This is not a teaching away.
115
Page: Previous 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013