Victory at U.S. Patent Office For ARM Ltd. Microprocessor Patent

MARK TERRY, ESQ.

The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences reversed a Patent Examiner’s rejections of an ARM Ltd. microprocessor patent application, clearing the way for the application to proceed toward issuance.

The dispute centered on the construction of the claim term “reallocation.” During prosecution, the USPTO applies the broadest reasonable interpretation, while generally giving claim language its ordinary and customary meaning as understood by a person of ordinary skill in the relevant field.

The Board concluded that the examiner’s interpretation was not reasonable. Because the cited prior art did not disclose the properly construed claim limitation, the rejection could not stand. The absence of a claimed element from a reference defeats anticipation.

The decision highlights the importance of scrutinizing how an examiner interprets key terms. The broadest-reasonable-interpretation standard is broad, but it does not permit constructions that are strained, implausible, or disconnected from the ordinary meaning and the application’s disclosure.

When responding to a rejection, practitioners should isolate the claim terms doing the most work, compare the examiner’s construction with the specification and ordinary usage, and challenge any interpretation that exceeds a reasonable reading of the claims.