Re: News - Commercial Version of Hercules - Turbo Hercules

--- In [email protected], Roger Bowler <rogerbowler@...> wrote:

> That assumes that the alleged patents are (a) valid patents and (b)
> used by the emulator. Neither of which has been established at this
> point in time.
> 
> Having analyzed a handful of the patents involved, there are serious
> doubts about their validity and/or applicability to Hercules. It is
> reasonable to assume that the remaining patents will be similar.

I just looked at the very first one, 7624237, "Compare, swap and store facility with no external serialization".

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7624237.PN.&OS=PN/7624237&RS=PN/7624237

What I don't understand is that it is dated November 24, 2009 and the Filed date is May 3, 2006.  How can hercules violate this patent if the code was in place years before the patent was even filed?  Seems hercules would then be prior art?

Greg