Case: Patents/Obviousness (P.T.A.B.)

Some challenged claims of University of Rochester’s patent that describes a multiple clock domain microarchitecture for a microprocessor which uses a globally-asynchronous, locally-synchronous clocking style where each functional block operates with a separately generated clock are unpatentable as obvious over prior art, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board said, in an inter partes review by Lenovo (United States) Inc. The board determined that some challenged claims aren’t obvious over various combinations of prior art, including prior art that discloses a system and method using thermal feedback to cooperatively vary a voltage and frequency of a circuit to control heating while ...