US 7536473

Patent Overview — US7536473B2 (concise, ≤400 words)

Title: General input/output architecture, protocol and related methods to implement flow control.

Patent number / kind: US7536473B2. Application: US10/227,601. Other version: US20030158992A1.

Assignee: Intel Corp (original assignee: Intel Corp). Inventors: Jasmin Ajanovic, David Harriman, Blaise Fanning, David M. Lee.

Dates (from the supplied record): Priority date 2001-08-24; filing date 2002-08-23; US20030158992A1 published 2003-08-21; patent granted/published 2009-05-19. Status shown as Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration 2025-03-01.

Purpose (per the source's Definitions): Embodiments "generally relate to the field of general input/output (GIO) bus architectures and, more particularly, to an architecture, protocol and related methods to implement flow control between elements within a GIO bus architecture." The background notes that computing appliances (computers, servers, networking switches and routers, wireless communication devices, etc.) comprise elements such as processors, memory systems, input/output interfaces and peripherals, and that a general purpose input/output (GIO) bus has long been used to let these disparate elements communicate. The PCI bus standard is described as defining a multi-drop, parallel bus architecture interconnecting chips, expansion boards, and processor/memory subsystems in an arbitrated fashion.

Plain-language scope (as far as the supplied excerpt establishes): The patent concerns an architecture, protocol, and methods for controlling the flow of data between elements on a general input/output bus. Google Patents' "prior art keywords" for this record are flow control, buffer, credits, interface, and gio; classifications include G06F13/00 and G06F13/12 (peripheral program control via channel/peripheral processor), G06F13/382–13/385 (universal interface adapter), G06F13/4027, G06F13/405–13/4059 (bus bridges, synchronising, buffers/speed matching), G06F13/42 (bus transfer protocol, handshake, synchronisation), and H04L47/10 and H04L47/30 (flow control/congestion control, including buffer occupancy at either end). A classification such as H04L47/30 suggests buffer-occupancy-based flow control, but the excerpt supplies no claim text, so claim scope is not shown.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7536473](/patent/US7536473)/en

What the excerpt does not establish: It provides no claims, full description, drawings, or cited prior art. The classification titles, "prior art keywords," and litigation/continuation entries are database metadata, not findings; legal status and priority are expressly assumptions. No litigation, ownership, validity, or prior-art conclusions are drawn here.