copy of interview summary from bearcub at RB

INTERVIEW SUMMARY,,"336"..

An in-person interview was held at the United States Patent and Trademark Office on April 9, 2009 to discuss the merits of the present application. Examiner Samuel Rimell, Examiner Jessica Harrison, Examiner Woo H. Choi, and the Patent Owner's Attorney Larry E. Henneman, Jr. participated in the interview. The Patent Owner thanks the Examiners for participating in the interview and appreciates the cooperative and professional nature of the interview and the constructive suggestions of all three Examiners.

As an initial matter, Mr. Henneman indicated that the Patent Owner intended to file a certificate of correction to change "a synchronously" to "asynchronously" in the specification, in order to correct a printing error by the Office. Examiner Rimell suggested that this correction could be made by an amendment to the specification instead of a certificate of correction. Mr. Henneman agreed to make the amendment in the next response.

Mr. Henneman asked if the overly broad interpretation of the term "independent" asserted in the previous Office action was believed by Examiner Rimell to be required due to the confusion caused by dependent Claims 5, 8, 15 and 18. Examiner Rimell confirmed that this was the case. It was agreed that Claims 5, 8, 15, and 18 would be canceled to eliminate any confusion. It was also agreed that the independent claims would be amended to clarify the term "independent" as described below.

Mr. Henneman provided a brief overview of the claimed invention, making reference to Fig. 17 of U.S. Patent No. 5,809,336 (the '336 patent, the patent under re-examination). Specifically, Mr. Henneman pointed out that CPU 70 operates asynchronously with respect to I/O Interface 432, citing Col. 17, Lines 11-36 of the '336 patent. In addition, Mr. Henneman pointed out that the clock signal of clock 430 does not originate from the off-chip clock 434 and vice versa. In contrast, it was noted that the clock signals of the primary reference U.S. Patent No. 4,766,567 (Kato) "are produced in synchronism with the signal from first clock generator 14," citing Col. 4, Lines 58-60. It was also noted, with reference to Fig. 4 of Kato, that the clock signals 0a and 0b originate from the clock signal 001, and that clocks 14 and 15 are both on the same semiconductor chip.