Patents by Inventor Lawrence J. Merkel

Lawrence J. Merkel has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Arbitration protocol system granting use of a shared resource to one of a plurality of resource users
    Patent number: 5392434
    Abstract: An arbitration protocol comprises the steps of receiving a plurality of resource request signals (12), comparing the received plurality of resource request signals to a rotating pointer (14), and either granting the shared resource to the resource user specified by the rotating pointer (16) and incrementing the rotating pointer (18) or granting the shared resource to a resource user according to fixed priority protocol (20, 22, 24, 26 and 28). The rotating pointer specifies one of a plurality of resource users according to a predetermined order. The two steps of granting are responsive to the step of comparing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 3, 1993
    Date of Patent: February 21, 1995
    Assignee: Motorola, Inc.
    Inventors: Christopher Bryant, Lawrence J. Merkel