uselessOn March 23, 2010, Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia refused to revisit his decision of February 22, 2010 to deny a stay of Optimum Processing Solutions, L.L.C. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. et al. (Case No. 09-cv-01098) pending the outcome of  reexamination of the patent-in-suit (U.S. Patent No. 5,115,497).  The patent-in-suit entitled “OPTICALLY INTRACONNECTED COMPUTER EMPLOYING DYNAMICALLY RECONFIGURABLE HOLOGRAPHIC OPTICAL ELEMENT” issued  May 19, 1992 and expired May 19, 2009.  The stay was denied despite the fact that no depositions had been taken in the patent litigation and no claim construction order had issued. On February 19, 2010, the USPTO ordered ex parte reexamination of claims 1-4, 11-12, 16-19 and 34-35 of the ‘497 patent based on a request filed by AMD. (Reexamination Control No. 90/010,783).  Since the ‘497 patent expired, no claim amendments can be made during the reexamination proceedings and claims will not be given their broadest reasonable interpretation (see our earlier discussion on the issue here).  Rather much like what Judge Batten will do in his claim construction order, the USPTO will interpret the patent claims not only based on the words of the claims read in light of and consistent with supporting specification of the ‘497 patent, but also consider its prosecution history and any extrinisic evidence submitted  in the form of expert declarations or affidavits as to the meanings of words in the claims, as to how they would have been understood by a person of ordinary skill in the technology of the patent at the time the invention was made.