COMMISSIONER'S DECISION
S2 Computer Related Subject Matter: Data Processing System
Applicant's system of registers, timing chain headers, and means
to interconnect the components to release signals to permit
sequential operation and avoid suspension of operation was found
acceptable. No hearing deemed necessary. Rejection of application
withdrawn.
This decision deals with Applicant's request for review by the Commissioner
of Patents of the Final Action on application 319,883 (Class 354-231) filed
January 18, 1979. Assigned to Plessey Handel and Investments Ag, it is
entitled REAL-TIME DATA PROCESSING SYSTEM FOR PROCESSING TIME PERIOD
COMMANDS. The inventor is Peter Fox. The Examiner in charge issued a
Final Action on December 22, 1981 refusing to allow the application.
The application relates to data processing systems such as telecommunica-
tion switching systems where a process may be suspended for a certain time
period, for example, a dialled digit process may be suspended for a period
after reception of each digit. The number of suspended processes at any
one time in such systems is often large. The invention provides a grouping
of devices to arrange all the suspended or "wait-for" commands into a list
and provides either a means to restart the processes when the wait-for
commands come due according to their position on the list, or, a means that
responds to an external event that occurs before the waiting period matures
and causes the process to be removed from the wait condition. The stacks
containing the information relevant to the waiting processes are chained
together in the order they are suspended as shown in figure 7. Pointers
connect the stack segments with the timing chain header segments. All the
timing chain headers are inter-linked as shown in figure 8 whereby the
lists of all the segments of the headers may be accessed in sequence.
Included in the system is a timing chain monitoring process that scans the
timing chain headers, ascertains those suspended processes which are to be
removed, and computes the next run based on the information in the headers.
Figures 7 and 8, reproduced below, show certain elements which function
with the stacks, registers, and ocher components of the system described
and shown in the overall combination in figures 1A and 1B. These elements
enable suspended processes to be reincluded into the system operation.
<IMGS>
In Making his rejection under Section 2, the Examiner said, in part, as
follows
...
The applicant has disclosed a process to be carried out
on a prior art computer (see page 5 line 24 of the dis-
closure). No new apparatus has been disclosed. As
such the claims are contrary to the guidelines set out
in the Commissioner's decision published on pages xviii
to xxvi of the CPOR of August 1, 1978.
To overcome the rejection, therefore, applicant must
show that the process carried out by the computer is an
invention within the leaning of Section 2. The fact
that the claims are in terms of a system rather than a
process does not alter this requirement in view of the
Schlumberger judgement which, as noted above, estab-
lished the principle that: "the fact that a computer
is used to implement discovery does not change the
nature of that discovery".
...
The Applicant responded to the objections, in part, in the following terms:
...
With respect to claims 1 to 11 of the present applica-
tion, applicant's system, or apparatus claims, define
the applicant's invention in terms of a combination of
means, and accordingly the objection that the applica-
tion discloses no new apparatus and that the invention
disclosed is a process, to be carried out on a prior
computer, seems to be totally in error. The Examiner
has referred to the specification at page 5, line 24.
Looking at the paragraph beginning at line 4 of page 5
it will be seen that what the applicant is describing
there, and what he is referring to at line 24 of page 5
has to do with a central processor unit which would be
suitable for use in the data processing system defined
in the applicant's claims. In the sentence ending at
line 24, the applicant mentions that this unit may be
organized on the so-called capability register struc-
ture and the applicant refers to a British patent spe-
cification which discloses such organization. Nowhere
does the applicant specify that the present invention
is a process carried out on a prior art computer.
...
With respect, the Examiner is clearly wrong in suggesting
that the guidelines set forth in the August, 1978 issue
of the Canadian Patent Office Record may have received
support in the pronouncements of the Courts of Canada.
. . . There is no specific reference in the Judgement of
Pratte J. to the Canadian Patent Office Record of August
1st, 1978, or to the specific guidelines contained in
that issue of the Patent Office Record. Applicant main-
tains, and the fact is, that these guidelines are totally
arbitrary and devoid of any authority pursuant to the
Patent Act or any of the reported decisions of the
Federal or Exchequer Courts of Canada interpreting the
Patent Act.
...
.... The last paragraph of the Reasons for Judgement
does not read as set forth in the Office Action. ....
(It) begins on page 205, 56 CPR 2(d), and is of suffi-
cient significance that it should be read in its en-
tirety. The contents of this paragraph will not be
repeated here since the entire Judgement accompanies
this response. To extract from this last paragraph,
the meaningful portion thereof, the sentences beginning
at the first line of page 206, should be considered
"what is new here is the discovery of the
various calculations to be made and of the
mathematical formulae to be used in making
those calculations. If those calculations
were not to be effected by computers but by
men, the subject-matter of the application
would clearly be mathematical formulae and a
series of purely mental operations; as such,
in my view, it would not be patentable."
.... The learned Judge concluded that in the
Schlumberger case the discovery was merely a series of
mathematical formulae and that mathematical formulae as
such, are scientific principles or abstract theorems,
and therefore prohibited under Section 28(3) of the
Act. The Judge, then concluded, that because such
formulae were prohibited pursuant to Section 28(3) that
the invention was not an invention within the meaning
of Section 2.
...
.... All telephone systems in operation in Canada at
the present time, are in fact, complex digital pro-
cessor controlled switching systems making use of ex-
tensive digital techniques both to transmit voice sig-
nals, and to carry digital data and digital signalling
information. Virtually, every long distance telephone
call in Canada is now made through systems which trans-
form the voices of the persons carrying on the conver-
sation into digital data and then transmits such voice
signals via digital processors and data links from one
location to another, reconstructing the voice signals
from the digital information at the receiving ter-
minal. As taught in the present application, the
applicant's invention has particular utility in tele-
communications switching systems.
The issue before the Board is whether or not the application and the claims
are directed to patentable subject matter in view of Section 2 of the
Patent Act. Claim 1 reads:
A system for controlling the execution of suspended
processes in a real-time data processing system, said
processes being suspended for predetermined time per-
iods upon the data processing system, executing a sub-
routine, encountering a wait-for time period command,
each said command specifying one of a plurality of pre-
determined time periods, the system including a memory
for storing information relevant to the processes, and
at least one processor unit arranged to perform the
processes, each process being provided with an informa-
tion segment in the memory for holding working para-
meters for the process when the process is suspended,
the information segment including (i) an indication of
the time when the wait-for time period is due to mature
for that process, and (ii) information segment linking
information forming the information segments of all the
processes which are suspended by commands having the
same particular time period into a first linked list
arranged in chronological order in which the processes
are suspended, the first linked list being also linked
to a timing chain header segment stored in the memory
and exclusively allocated to the said particular time
period, the timing chain header segment storing a wake-
up value indicative of the time when the wait-for time
period for the first information segment on the first
linked list will mature, and each timing chain header
segment including header linking information forming
the timing chain header segments into a second linked
list, and the memory also including a ready to run file
having one entry for each process which is ready to be
run by the processor unit, the system implementing a
timing chain search procedure which is arranged to be
run when the real-time reaches a predetermined value,
wherein the timing chain search procedure includes
(a) reading the wake-up values in each of the
timing chain header segments,
(b) comparing the wake-up values read with the
time at which the timing chain search procedure is run,
(c) placing those process having wake-up values
which equate to the time at which the timing chain
search procedure is run on the read to run file,
(d) removing those processes having wake-up values
which equate to the time at which the timing chain
search procedure is run from the first linked lists,
and adjusting the wake-up values in the relevant timing
chain header segments, and
(e) reading the wake-up values of each timing
chain header segment and selecting the smallest wake-up
value to provide the next predetermined value.
During prosecution both the Examiner and the Applicant have looked to the
decision in Schlumberger Canada Ltd. v. The Commissioner of Patents (181)
56 C.P.R. 204. We find guidance in determining the issues before us, in
the following passages by Pratte, J. from that decision:
In order to determine whether the application discloses
a patentable invention, it is first necessary to deter-
mine what, according to the application, has been dis-
covered.
and
I am of opinion that the fact a computer is or should
be used to implement discovery does not change the
nature of that discovery. What the appellant claims as
an invention here is merely the discovery that by
making certain calculations according to certain for-
mulae, useful information could be extracted from cer-
tain measurements. This is not, in my view, an inven-
tion within the meaning of Section 2.
In assessing Applicant's subject matter, we are persuaded that the 'what'
of Applicant's device is a grouping of elements in a switching system which
provides a queuing of processes awaiting operation and a sequencing of
their acceptance into the system. To bring about his operation, Applicant
has arranged a system using registers containing stacks of information, and
timing chain headers, for example, as well as various means to interconnect
all the components of the system that act to store and release signals
which permit various processes to be carried out sequentially. We see too,
special processes work with the arrangement described in order to permit an
external event to release a process that is queued, or chained in sequence,
for operation before its time sequence would permit. We feel that Appli-
cant's combination of elements represents a type of subject matter that
falls within a patentable field of art.
In Applicant's response he brings to light that his combination has utility
in a telecommunications switching system. The Examiner for his part is
aware that a system is being claimed, and points out that in his view no
new apparatus has been disclosed. Even given that the parts of Applicant's
device are old, the overriding consideration here is whether or not Appli-
cant's arrangement of them has provided a combination of structures to
bring about a device that falls within the confines of Section 2. We are
persuaded by the disclosure and Applicant's arguments that his arrangement
provides a system that is acceptable under Section 2. We note that no art
has been cited during the prosecution, and we make no finding on the
allowability of the claimed matter. Should such an issue arise, then a
Hearing might prove to be necessary.
We recommend the rejection of the application and the claims for failing to
satisfy Section 2 of the Act, be withdrawn.
M.G. Brown S.D. Kot
Acting Chairman Member
Patent Appeal Board
I concur with the findings and the recommendation of the Patent Appeal
Board. Accordingly, I withdraw the refusal of the application, and return
it for continued prosecution.
J.H.A. Gari‚py
Commissioner of Patents
Dated at Hull, Qu‚bec
this 14th day of August 1986
Scott & Aylen
170 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Ontario
K1P 5V5