Four 'JMOL' motions discussed today, no conclusions
Two sheets were handed to the counsels, 5 minutes before THJW appeared. Deter apparently smiled and nodded 4 times as he read through, but then seemed puzzled by the 4th item as he went back and forth from page 1 to page 2. More on this later...
1. Reprising One More Time, Tapped delay line vs. variable delay line. Rambus first, explaining how hynix part works. Reviewing once again that in the 90's, patents were filed where VDL or VDDL did refer to a selectable tapped inverter string. Detre had it more or less right, although he insisted on calling the delay elements 'fixed' delay when they of course have delay which varies with power supply (and vary in an analog fashion!).
Brown gave a smoke-and-mirrors 'highly complex' description of a successive approximation approach to choosing which tap to use, and then further mischaracterized Detre's mischaracterization. Brown is a very muddled speaker, and I often can't rememeber the beginning of his sentences by the end of them.
Brown is unable to stick to Taylor's relentless 'selectable delay network' characterization, and slips into 'tapped delay line' naming, probably to his 'detrement'. Ha! So, the time to get this 'fixed' delay fiction fixed was at or before Taylor's testimony, but they apparently weren't listening to me. Next time I'll call someone they trust and make them deliver the news to the litigators. This could have been destroyed at trial by asking Taylor about what could vary the 'fixed' delays.
2. Read Request; Hynix first, another rehash of the the semantic hairsplitting, buttressed by their favorite quotes from the opposing expert, etc. Is the interruptable read a different read than the read-with-auto-precharge? Hynix says that the read portion (before the PC) is identical, Rambus says it is not separable, and that the two read requests are different and specified by the A10 bit. Brown gets up at the end to protest something said by Deter.
3. Access time register; Hynix first again, regarding a 'Register containing a data value representative of a time the device MUST wait before outputting data'. Brown goes for the smokingmirrors again, this time regarding delay time PLUS TACC, where Tacc is a time which comes from the data sheet, and for that matter, Tacc is a maximum time. THerefore, the time that the device must wait is partially an undefined range of TACC delay, not defined by the value in the register. Therefore, 'no reasonable jury could find to the contrary.'
At this point I was looking for the motionsickness bags, but there are none on the backs of the pews. This is just awful to sit through.
Detre says that at trial, hiney asserted that Cas Latency was stored, not access time, but has abandoned that stance as untenable today. So now all of the yammering about the Tacc nonsense. Detre fires off the first marginal analogy, that the schedule is about when a Train arrives in sacramento, but it also can tell you when the train must leave San Jose to arrive in sacramento on the advertised schedule. Luckily he then reiterates verbatim Lee and Taylor explicit testimony that the two programmed choices of cas latency, that the data 'must wait' at least 1 (or 2 as programmed) clock cycles.
Detre acknowledges that Tacc is added to the minimum delay as specified by the mode register, but calls it a red herring.
Brown again rebuts, and picks up Detre's analogy and further muddles it. He says that the words 'at least' do not appear in the claim construction.
4. Something missing in the handouts, between the first sentence and the last. (Ironically, this is about whether the clock edge elicits a data output). Both parties noticed this when they got the handouts, and made some 'coupling' jokes, but
neither had the cajones to bring it to the court's attention before it came up.
Brown repeating the party line, about the crossing point of the complementary clocks, not the rising edge (eventually countered by Detre that it is the rising edge (or falling edge) of CLK that does the work, and that the ClockBar signal defines the exact point on the rising or falling edge that triggers the action).
HEAVY SMOKingmirrors work by Brown, about Oh-so-many intevening schematics render the relationship to the clock unrecognizable.
Once again Brown alludes to undescribable (by him anyway) complexity. About now, he experiences a
'prosecutorial epiphany',,,and impulsively decides to go for the visceral analogy; The Pinball Machine.
Apparently the Clerk looks baffled, and Brown softly says
'I guess you've never seen a pinball machine'.
THJW says 'What?"
Brown apologizes for conversing with the clerk,
about whether she was old enough to have played pinball.
THJW enthusiastically says "Well, I've certainly played pinball',
and Brown has now swallowed hook, line, and sinker on his analogy. He's now doomed, but doesn't realize it and drags us all along for a dreary long-winded exploration of how
while pulling back the plunger does inevitably lead to the ball going out the chute at the bottom,
that there are a lot of intervening complex events.
As he goes on and on, he expands on the complex and variable
{Incidentally , Highly NonDeterministic}
chain of events from plunger to chute, by analogy from external clock edge to data output. I'm furious that he has claimed that there is great uncertainty from start to finish, but I sit quietly.
As Deter stands to rebut, THJW poses a question about whether
in the absence of a factual dispute between the parties, is the JMOL purely a decision for the court?
Deter does say (as Brown later agrees) that there are indeed differences of opinion about 'the facts', and that it is not purely a matter of JMOL. {even though that is what they are labelled}
ANYWay, bear with me, this is a WHOLE LOT easier to read than the dang 2 hours it took in realtime.!
Deter does then describe that there is a very precise chain of events from external clock edge to data output.
He slyly suggests an analogy of Pavlov's Dogs,
where the ringing of the bell does elicit canine salivation.
As we are wondering about the relevance of this analogy,
he coyly pauses a moment, and lays out the following;
So the chain of events starts with the motion of the bell handle,
which causes the clapper to move back and forth inside the bell and strike the inner surface, which causes a (Hi-Q) mechanical resonance,
which is coupled into the air,
which vibrations are transported by incredibly complex mechanisms to the ear of the dog,
which causes vibrations of the bones of the ear of the dog,
which are eventually converted into nerve impulses,
and thence thoughts in the dog
(at this point audible guffaws are slipping out of the various attendees)
and then (Deter continues) eventually leading to saliva dripping from the tongue of the dog...
(At this point, even Brown expresses sounds of disgust at the vivid image. THJW says 'Extra credit for an effective analogy', more laffs, and then we go on.)
So the point is that regardless of the degree of complexity ascribed to the coupling mechanism, the stimulus does certainly elicit the outcome, and that in the case of the hiney part, it is a very precise chain of events without random bumpers and flippers. A bad player maybe gets 5 seconds, and a very good player gets 5 minutes between plunger and chute, where the chain of events in the hiney memory is very precisely controlled, and measured in nanoseconds.
Deter does get in one more image, that the linkage does only work when the bell is in Air as opposed to a vaccuum chamber,
further destroying some picture Brown was trying to paint.
Nissley was silent throughout, as was Stone.
After a momentary sidebar, we were done.
