+Fujitsu, Panasonic, JVC, Toshiba, NEC…

Long delayed, combination of ring oscillator and CPU, contested as obvious

UC Berkeley, Center for Entrepreneurship and TechnologyIEOR 190G Patent Engineering, Feb 2, 2009

George Shaw, MS EECS

Fall 1988 Group forms to develop 32-bit CPU - Russell Fish, Chuck Moore CPU (patents 1989) - George Shaw Systems,

Software - Others

Software, Applications

OKI Semiconductor prototype FPGA

Nanotronics, Inc. 1991-1994 Patriot Scientific 1994 – TPL Group later…

Due to the risk of failure, OKI won’t let Moore & Fish build aspects of the patented design, at issue, mostly, the variable speed clock.

Prototypes work!

CPU not licensed after 18 months…

Moore and Fish go separate ways.

Fish’s rights get acquired by Nanotronics who gets acquired by Patriot Scientific, who pay for patent work

Delaying office actions to keep patent expenditures low for the moment

Delays expire, finally claims are filed and over several years in late 1990s, seven patents granted, 7-10 years after filing.

Who owns the patents? Moore or Patriot (Fish)? Who gets to license? Who makes money? Who invented

what? Patriot sues TPL (Moore) After 18 months, they kiss and make up. TPL licenses and

they split the money (after expenses).

TPL finds many, many companies are infringing on patents. Intel and AMD are first to license.

Delay in processing and enforcing the patents allowed technology to come into wide use.

Variable speed clock makes fast, cheap devices (most interesting patent)

The technology they developed is in your home, on your desk, in your car… it's in your pocket. Its in computers, cameras, printers, and cell phones.

Big Japanese players refuse to license

TPL brings suit

Silicon transistor speed varies with manufacturing process, voltage, temperature

In 1989 speed ratios: Process variations 2:1 Voltage 1.3:1 Temperature 1.1:1

Overall ~3:1Must design for worst-case conditions

Speed grading is costly Give up performance to ensure reliable operation

(over-clocking today)

Around since vacuum tune eraOscillators are precise and are expensiveOften CPU only needs to be fast enough

Inverter:

Ring oscillator used to test process speed

Ring oscillator connected to a CPU and designed to operate no faster than the CPU

Can run as fast as possible but won’t run too fast—or can run slower if desired

Saves $$ in oscillator cost, circuit board space, and power

Automatically varies in speed by process, voltage and temperature (no special circuitry)

Obviousness—but it hadn’t been done. Risk?Moore limited success, Patriot did not use it. Specification somewhat vague. Specification complete enough to teach usage.Not usable because not used.Claim construction—specific wordings, trying to

narrow application.Patents not enforced for 7 years after grant.

In Dec 2007…

Keep ownership of invention clearly designated in one entity.

Make the specification broad but clearMake the claims broad but vague