Meta Smalltalk patent spat assumes Merced meaning

Correction Since we filed this story yesterday, we have heard from the ILDF plaintiffs who now inform us that the patent in question, below, has now been assigned to Techsearch. Val Scott, representing ILDF, said that she is filing another motion for the judge to reconsider. MM New factors in the ongoing patent case between ILDF shareholders and other parties, including Intel, have emerged. The patent in question, as reported here earlier, relates to a putative Mac founded company, International Meta Systems, which created the idea for a processor called the Meta 3240, a Smalltalk-based system. Now it appears that Intel may have wanted the patent because the Meta 3240 and its later rev the Meta 3250, could have helped the chip giant bridge things for its up-and-coming Merced processor. According to the IMS patent filed with the relevant US authorities as docket number 5,574,927, in 1996, the chip was: "A RISC architecture computer configured for emulating the instruction set of a target computer to execute software written for the target computer, e.g., an Intel 80X86, a Motorola 680X0 or a MIPS R3000. The apparatus is integrated with a core RISC computer to form a RISC computer that executes an expanded RISC instruction. The expanded RISC instruction contains data fields which d esignate indirect registers that point to emulation registers that correspond to registers in the target computer. The width of the emulation registers is at least the width of those in the target computer." ® See also Intel,Telesearch, IMS case takes further twist Intel bang to rights on questionable business ethics