After reading the amended claim 9 a few times along with the rest of the claims, it would appear that the only new part not claimed elsewhere is "a processing unit having one or more interface ports."

IMHO, the amendment to claim 9 was trying to patent interface ports for interprocessor communication. We know there is prior art that consists of multiple chips that communicate with each other, so it would appear to me that this language could could present huge prior art hurdles.

Not aware of what prompted the amendment in the first place, but given the way it was worded, I can see why the examiner might have a problem with it. So backing out the amendment seems logical. Hopefully the examiner is OK with the other claims since no other changes were deemed necessary in the nov 23rd filing.

All IMHO,

OPty