Patent Alert: ESL model creator

Written by Brian Bailey January 05, 2010 Hits: 658 Favorites

4.0 (1)

Every once in a while I find a patent that I believe may be of interest to people, either because it may relate to work that they are doing, or may influence the industry. This week one turned up in my search that surprises me due to the broadness of what it is talking about. It is not yet approved as a patent, but is progressing through the system. The company behind it is Fujitsu and it appears as if they may already have approval for this in Japan.

The abstract for this patent application states: A model managing apparatus manages an intellectual property model formed by using program description to model a function to be realized as hardware. The model managing apparatus includes a data storing unit that stores and manages therein electronic system levels that are components into which the intellectual property model is divided. The components are an application program interface that defines external communications, a register that defines data to be input and output, and a behavior that defines a function or a computation. The data storing unit further stores therein connection data that defines connection relations between the register and the behavior, between behaviors, and between the behavior and the application program interface.

The first claim is basically a repeat of the abstract. Now this sounds to me just like every model that I know about, including RTL models with the one exception that a signal interface is replaced by an API, and almost every SystemC model would appear to fit into this claim – in fact they use SystemC to demonstrate many of the capabilities. Now in all fairness it does appear as if the central concept here is that registers and behaviors are stored in a separate database and that models are created based on a configuration of these, but that is not what the patent claims and thus should not be allowed, but who knows given some of the patents that I have seen be approved.

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4.0

Claims aren't claims

Overall:

4.0

Reviewed by Henry Davis
January 05, 2010

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Actually this is a common misunderstanding when reading abstracts, descriptions and claims. The claims have to be interpreted by the lexicon of the patent application and the prosecution history. Many of these applications turn on how definitions are crafted. Keep in mind that claims may be made up until the application is issued.

So, it's pretty premature to assess what this application means. But looking at the figures and definitions briefly, claims 1 actually is claiming a very specific "computer system" that stores specific data structures.

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Brian Bailey