Best I can surmise, the original '584 had 29 claims prior to the re-exam request. Nearly 30 additional claims were added to address all of the different issues brought up by the re-exam over the last couple of years. FINALLY, in an effort to conclude the process, we have agreed to modify Claim 29 ONLY and eliminate all the added claims to which it seems the examiner has accepted the 584 as revalidatable (if that's a word).

So ultimately, we have the original patent, with a modified Claim 29 that to my lay eye seems to suggest a more narrow application than before, but nonetheless a patent that still works the same way. HOWEVER, that's just my uneducated read on the effect of the amended claim, and I'd like anyone here who has some knowledge about these issues to elaborate if they can on what they understand this impact to be. Ultimately, though, it appears the '584 is at the end of the process based on what I see in the language that the Examiner is agreeing that this amendment addresses the obviousness issues that have been brought up.

Is this what others see, and does the '584 still have some decent teeth behind it? Thanks in advance for your comments/answers.

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Original Claim 29:

In a microprocessor system including a central processing unit, memory, and and instruction register, a method for providing instructions and operands from said memory to said central processing unit comprising the steps of:

• providing instruction groups to said instruction register from said memory wherein certain of said instruction groups include at least one instruction that when executed, causes an access to an operand or an instruction or both, said operand or instruction being located at a predetermined position froma boundary of said instruction groups;
• decoding said at least on instruction to determine said predetermined position;
• locating said predetermined position; and
• supplying from said instruction groups using the predetermined location said operand or instruction or both to said central processing unit

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Amended Claim 29:

In a microprocessor system including a central processing unit, memory, and and instruction register, a method for providing instructions and literal operands from said memory to said central processing unit comprising the steps of:

• providing instruction groups to said instruction register from said memory;
• wherein said instruction register is connected to circuits that decode instruactions;
• wherein each of said instruction groups is structured to comprise a set of locations, including a first location, that contain either instructions or operands or both, said operands comprising either literal operands or varialbe-length address operands, and said instructions including opcode bits or both opcode bits and address selection bits but not including variable-length operands; and further
• wherein certain of said instruction groups include at least one instruction that when executed, causes an access to an instruction, or to a literal operand and an instruction, said accessed literal operand or said acessed instruction being located at a predetermined position from a boundary of said instruction groups, said accessed instruction positioned at only the first location of an instruction group;
• decoding said at least on instruction to determine at least said predetermined position of said accesed instruction as only the first location of the set of locations of the instruction group containing said accessed instruction;
• locating at least said predetermined position; and
• supplying said accessed instruction, or said accessed literal operand and said accessed instruction from said instruction groups to said central processing unit, using at least said predetermined position.