Luigi Rizzo <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> wrote:

> > The patent specifically claims a means by which the chip is
> > programmed with FEWER PINS than the width of each memory cell... Here
> > are some selected quotes from the Background and Summary sections of
> > the patent:
>
> well the description you gave above made no mention on the number of
> pins used.

    Luigi:

    Yes, that's true... But the "description" I gave was the TITLE of
    that particular patent, not my own summary of it.

    I apologize for not explaining that the description was in
    Microchip's words, not mine... I should have realized that
    non-native speakers of English (I assume that your native
    language is Italian) might not recognize the stilted, formal
    language used in most U.S. patent applications.

> Luckily I am not much in patent stuff, but everytime I read a
> patent, some of its claims seem so obvious that it is surprising and
> highly suspicious that the patent has been granted. This one is
> possibly even worse than the average:
>
> > "It is a principal object of the present invention to provide
> > apparatus and method which permits the use of 14-bit instruction
> > words despite the presence of only 12 I/O pins in the
> > microcontroller.",
>
> ah... someone has finally invented serial communication...

    I understand your point, but as I'm sure you know, invention is
    an incremental process... Most patents advance the state of the
    art by just a small amount; there are very few gigantic leaps.

    New inventions generally build on existing ones, and there's
    nothing wrong with granting patents to those new inventions. For
    example, few people would argue that the microprocessor was an
    "obvious" idea unworthy of a patent, even though transistors,
    integrated circuits, and digital computers all existed for years
    before it was invented... The "innovation", in that case,
    involved combining those three existing ideas in a novel way.

    Obvious or not, this particular claim is likely to be invalidated
    ONLY if Scenix can show that prior art existed (i.e., that an
    earlier microprocessor used 12 or fewer I/O pins to load the
    contents of 14-bit instruction words).  If you know of such prior
    art, I'd love to hear about it.

    -Andy

=== Andrew Warren - fastfwd@ix.netcom.com
=== Fast Forward Engineering - Vista, California
=== http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2499