News Release from: MIPS Technologies
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 1 March 2002

MIPS patent claims upheld

The US Patent and Trademark Office has completed its re-examination of US Patent 4,814,976 ('976 Patent) and confirmed the patentability of all 14 claims contained in the patent.

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The US Patent and Trademark Office has completed its re-examination of US Patent 4,814,976 ('976 Patent) and confirmed the patentability of all 14 claims contained in the patent. This final decision by the PTO, together with the favourable ruling regarding claim interpretation issued last September by the US District Court for the Northern District of California concerning the '976 Patent, further strengthens MIPS Technologies' position regarding the validity and scope of protection of this patent. The '976 Patent covers systems and methods for handling unaligned memory references.

This coverage includes a set of unaligned load and store instructions that are fundamental to every MIPS instruction set architecture.

A total of three re-examination requests were filed with the PTO against this patent by a third party between December 2000 and August 2001 in repeated attempts to invalidate or otherwise limit the scope of its claims.

The PTO, however, rejected these attempts, as evidenced by its final decision.

"Having successfully withstood the scrutiny of repeated reexamination requests, the '976 Patent is a proven element of our ever-expanding portfolio of patents around the world", said Sandy Creighton, vice president and general counsel at MIPS Technologies.

"We are gratified by the PTO's decision, which fully validates the position we have held since the beginning of this action".

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