Please clarify....Isn't this rejection of all claims equivalent to invalidation? I recognize that there is still a path(s) through the appeals process, but at this moment are we not essentially "dead in the water" on the '336? At least in the USA? I also recognize that the contested '148 is still alive, and there are a slew of other patents, but the '336 has always been suggested to be the heart of it all

If the examiner's factual analysis and conclusion was internally consistent, I would agree with you. Fortunately for the '336 he says the clocks are one thing to negate a claim, says that they are something different to negate another, then says that it is neither to claim obviousness.

The engineers here have articulated it far better than I ever could in that it is not physically possible for the clocks to operate as the examiner has described them.

For this reason, it would appear that it is the Final Rejection that is "dead in the water" and NOT the '336.

Perhaps, an independent expert from the IEEE might assist the USPTO in clarifying the matter?

http://www.ieee.org/portal/web/about...

They might also be able to assist with the definition of terms used in the patents that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have used in the 1980's.

From memory, weren't the J3 claiming that at the time of the application the claims were unworkable? If that is correct, the patents were far from "obvious" and therefore NOT predictable:

When a work is available in one field of endeavor, design incentives and other market forces can prompt variations of it, either in the same field or a different one. If a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation, § 103 likely bars its patentability. For the same reason, if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill. Id. at ___, 82 USPQ2d at 1396

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac...

Be well