DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending.
The office acknowledges the following papers:
Remarks, specification, oath, ADS, and power of attorney filed on 6/26/2025,
IDS filed on 7/11/2025,
Claims, specification, drawings, and remarks filed on 1/14/2026.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-13 are allowed.
Claims 14-20 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the double patenting rejections, set forth in this Office action.
As allowable subject matter has been indicated, applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with. See 37 CFR 1.111(b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Klaiber et al. (U.S. 7,937,700) is the closest prior art to reading upon the independent claim limitations of claims 1, 10, and 14. However, Klaiber failed to teach “a second register to store an address of an address table in the memory to store addresses of a plurality of registers including the registers of the software-provided list of registers, wherein the write list instruction comprises a second operand to identify the second register”. Klaiber also failed to teach "a third operand to specify a third register of the plurality of general-purpose registers to store a bitmask." Lastly, Klaiber failed to teach "in response to a valid bit of the bitmask, obtaining a value stored in a first entry of the first table and obtaining an address of a system register of the list of system registers specified in a first entry of the second table; and writing the value into the system register specified in the first entry of the second table."
Priority
The effective filing date for the subject matter defined in the pending claims in this application is 6/25/2021.
Drawings
The Examiner contends that the drawings submitted on 1/14/2026 are acceptable for examination proceedings.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. The Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which the Applicant may become aware.
Appropriate correction is required.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the "right to exclude" granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. See In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970);and, In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent is shown to be commonly owned with this application. See 37 CFR 1.130(b).
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
Applicants can file an eTerminal Disclaimer (eTD) in utility applications filed under 35 U.S.C. 111(a) or in compliance with 35 U.S.C. 371, and design applications. Filing an eTD via EFS-Web is highly recommended due to an extensive backlog for processing paper TDs. However, applicants may still file a TD for manual review.
Claims 14-20 are rejected under the judicially created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 13-18 of U.S. Patent No. 12,327,117. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because U.S. Patent No. 12,327,117 contains every element of claims 14-20 of the instant application and thus anticipates the claims of the instant application. Claims of the instant application therefore are not patently distinct from earlier patent claims and as such are unpatentable over obvious-type double patenting. A later application claim is not patently distinct from an earlier claim if the later claim is anticipated by the earlier claim.
Instant Application
U.S. Patent No. 12,327,117
14. A method comprising:
13. A method comprising:
fetching and decoding, in a front end circuit of a processor, a write list instruction having:
fetching and decoding, in a front end circuit of a processor, a write machine specific register (MSR) list instruction having:
a first operand to specify a first register of the processor to store an address of a first table in a memory coupled to the processor,
a first operand to specify a first register of the processor to store an address of a first table in a memory coupled to the processor,
a second operand to specify a second register of the processor to store an address of a second table in the memory, and
a second operand to specify a second register of the processor to store an address of a second table in the memory, and
a third operand to specify a third register of the processor to store a bitmask, the write list instruction to obtain processor state information from the memory for a list of system registers;
a third operand to specify a third register of the processor to store a bitmask, the write MSR list instruction to obtain processor state information from the memory;
providing the decoded write list instruction to an execution circuit of the processor;
providing the decoded write MSR list instruction to an execution circuit of the processor;
in response to a valid bit of the bitmask, obtaining a value stored in a first entry of the first table and obtaining an address of a system register of the list of system registers specified in a first entry of the second table; and
in response to a valid bit of the bitmask, obtaining a value stored in a first entry of the first table and obtaining an address of a MSR specified in a first entry of the second table; and
writing the value into the system register specified in the first entry of the second table.
writing the value into the MSR specified in the first entry of the second table.
Dependent claims 15-20 are read upon by the claims 13-18 of U.S. Patent No. 12,327,117.
Conclusion
The following is text cited from 37 CFR 1.111(c): In amending in reply to a rejection of claims in an application or patent under reexamination, the applicant or patent owner must clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. The applicant or patent owner must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JACOB A. PETRANEK whose telephone number is (571)272-5988. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00-4:30.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jyoti Mehta can be reached on (571) 270-3995. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JACOB PETRANEK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2183
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