This is but one this week. And as with football, you make the call. Patent 05317757, on its face, covers any use of a finite state machine. Claim number one focuses on any use of a finite state machine whatsoever, making no mention of the intended use of such a structure. Claim 2 focuses on finite state machines with two actions in the next-state computation.
Later claims add a third action.
The early part of the patent reads suspiciously like someone was trying to patent the finite state machines used in a network protocol stack. If one can buy them at the corner store with a range of choices, then finite state machines in software and networking code in particular are definitely not a new invention. This is a general patent on finite state machines originating from the software design of IBM's APPN networking product. They are a sort of description of how it is intended to be used. 1. to efficiently perform finite state machine processing in a system that is servicing multiple types of resources.