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During prosecution, the patent owner also stated that the “the oscillator or variable speed clock varies in frequency but does not require manual or programmed inputs or external or extra components to do so.”47 This statement is not a disavowal because it only affirms that external inputs are “not required.” The statement does not clearly impose a prohibition on all types of control.
2. Specification
Plaintiffs also argue that the specification supports their proposed construction. The specification describes the “ring oscillator” as having its frequency “determined by the parameters
of temperature, voltage, and process.”48 Although this portion of the specification appears to disclose the preferred embodiment rather than constitute an express limitation on the claimed invention,49 Claim 1 of the ’336 Patent claims that the processing frequency of the CPU and the ring oscillator vary together due to manufacturing variations, operating voltage, and temperature.
50 The claim itself provides that the “ring oscillator” is “constructed of the same process technology with corresponding manufacturing variations” on the same single integrated circuit so that its performance will fluctuate with the CPU because they are subject to the same “manufacturing variations” and “operating voltage and temperature.”51 During oral argument, TPL admitted that a ring oscillator on the same microprocessor as the CPU will vary based upon voltage, temperature, and process variations.52 Therefore, based upon the claim language and the specification, the court finds that the disclosed “ring oscillator” varies with voltage, temperature, and process variations.
Even though the claimed “ring oscillator” is “determined by the parameters of temperature, voltage, and process,” it does not necessarily follow, as Plaintiffs’ argue, that the “ring oscillator” must be non-controllable.53 The claims do not mention “controllable” or “non-controllable” in relation to the “ring oscillator” and neither does the specification. The term “non-controllable” is only used by the patent examiner in the prosecution history discussed above. Additionally, in the preferred embodiment, the “ring oscillator” is “determined” by temperature, voltage, and process,54 which suggests at least one embodiment in which the ring oscillator is controlled.
Because of the clear limitation in the claims that temperature, voltage, and process determine the “ring oscillator’s” frequency, the court includes those limitations in the construction of the term, but does not find similar support for importing the “non-controllable” limitation. The court therefore construes “ring oscillator” as “an oscillator having a multiple, odd number of inversions arranged in a loop, wherein the oscillator is variable based on the temperature, voltage and process parameters in the environment.”