I don't know why Mark4321 and others are so up tight with respect to the Barco summary judgement request. Barco is claiming the accused chips do not infringe on the 336 and only the 336. The rationale for the request is because Barco claims the accused chips do not have the variable variable speed clock required by the patent claims. Obviously, the definition of "variable speed clock" is critical to make such determination, and the court has not construed the term yet.

I'm sure that TPL's initial accusations are always based on what they think from whatever printed material they can find. I seriously doubt they tear down all products and visually inspect or test processors. But one would hope that before taking anyone to court, or if taken to court, that such work would then take place. So if indeed the chips do not infringe, I think it might be more a reflection of TPL not doing its job, than anything else.

I do not believe that using a variable speed clock is the essence of the invention. IMO, using the second clock to clock the I/O is the invention. That allows the CPU to run faster and more efficiently as it does not need to be involved in the process of obtaining data from off-chip memory. IMO, Using an on-chip variable speed clock is just a preferred embodiment.

So my question is whether Barco might still infringe on the 336 claims, even though the chips do not use a variable speed clock?

I honestly do not know the answer to the above question. But I'd like to.

Opty