Ex parte Golston

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Aug 16, 1999

08160300 (B.P.A.I. Aug. 16, 1999)

Application for patent filed November 30, 1993. 1
1
Paper No. 17
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today
(1) was not written for publication in a law journal and
(2) is not binding precedent of the Board.
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_______________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
_______________
Ex parte JEREMIAH E. GOLSTON
______________
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,3001
_______________
ON BRIEF
_______________
Before THOMAS, HAIRSTON, and KRASS, Administrative Patent
Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on the appeal from the examiner's
final rejection of claims 1 through 96, which constitute all
the claims in the application.
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
2
Representative claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. A method of conditional data processing operation
comprising the steps of:
setting a condition to either a first state or a second
state;
performing a first arithmetic/logical operation and
storing a first result in a first data register with a first
write priority; and
conditionally moving predetermined data into said first
data register if said condition has said first state with a
second write priority, said second write priority of said
conditional move being higher than said first write priority
of said first arithmetic/logical operation whereby said first
data register stores said predetermined data if said condition
has said first state or said first result of said first
arithmetic/logical operation if said condition does not have
said first state.
The following references are relied on by the examiner:
Pfeiffer et al. (Pfeiffer) 5,146,592 Sept. 8,
1992
Murakami et al. (Murakami) 5,247,627 Sept. 21,
1993
Kawata 5,274,777 Dec. 28,
1993
(filed Mar. 29,
1991)
Claims 1 through 96 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
As evidence of obviousness, the examiner relies upon Kawata as
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
At page 2 of the answer the examiner has withdrawn a rejection of2
certain claims under the second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112 as set forth in
the final rejection.
A reply brief filed on July 1, 1996 was indicated by the examiner in3
a communication on September 17, 1996 that it had not been entered. Therefore,
we have not considered it in our deliberations.
3
to claims 1 through 30, with the addition of Pfeiffer as to
claims 31 through 45. In a separate rejection, the examiner
rejects claims 1 through 96 in light of Murakami alone.2
Rather than repeat the positions of the appellant and the
examiner, reference is made to the brief and the answer for
the respective details thereof.3
OPINION
Turning first to the rejection of claims 1 through 30
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 in light of the teachings and showings
in Kawata alone, we reverse this rejection generally for the
reasons set forth by appellant at pages 8 and 9 of the brief.
Like appellant, we find no mention of write priorities in
storing results of an arithmetic/logic unit or the operation
of data selected by another circuit during Kawata's
instruction sequencing operations. The paragraph bridging
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
4
pages 3 and 4 of the answer indicates the examiner admits that
Kawata does not specifically disclose the conditional move
operation between predetermined data and the result of an ALU
operation. As briefly stated at page 4, the examiner is of
the belief that the artisan would have found it obvious to
have modified Kawata's
teachings as “suggested by Kawata in Figure 1.” We find no
teaching or suggestion in the mere showing of Kawata's Figure
1
to justify from an artisan's perspective the alleged obvious
modification.
As noted by appellant in the brief, we note that the
limited focus of Kawata is upon sorting operations. The data
structure presented in portions of Figure 2 in Kawata is
directed to sorting operations as a type of instruction with
subinstruction fields for data comparison operations. There
is no other discussion of anything comparable to the type of
operations set forth in representative independent claim 1 on
appeal and in each succeeding independent claims 11 and 21 as
to this rejection.
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
5
We are unpersuaded by the examiner's reasoning to modify the
sorting operations in Kawata to encompass other types of data
processing operations, such as that recited in the claims on
appeal, on the basis of the examiner's reasoning alone without
additional evidence in the form of other prior art to suggest
otherwise.
As to the examiner's observation at page 9 of the answer,
even though there appears to be no positive statement of a
structural component to perform the priority operation in
representative independent claim 1 on appeal, this is a method
claim and the priority operations recited are crucial to the
operation of the overall functionality of the subject matter
in the claim as best expressed in the whereby clause at the
end of claim 1. That the architecture of Kawata's Figure 1
may be amenable to support modification as urged by the
examiner, absent the earlier noted additional evidence
necessary to persuade us of the desirability or need of the
modification, clearly, the modification would not have been
obvious to the artisan within
35 U.S.C. § 103 as proposed by the examiner.
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
6
Inasmuch as the basic subject matter set forth in
independent claim 1 on appeal is present in each of the
succeeding independent claims 11 and 21 in this rejection, the
rejection of them and all respective dependent claims must be
reversed.
Turning next to the rejection of claims 31 through 45 in
light of the collective teachings of Kawata in view of
Pfeiffer, this rejection also must be reversed for the same
reasons set forth earlier. Pfeiffer is not urged by the
examiner to cure any noted deficiencies of Kawata as to the
basic issue reflected in independent claim 21 just discussed
but for other structural features set forth only in dependent
claims 31 through 45. We are also not aware of any additional
teachings in Pfeiffer that would have done so as well. Thus,
we must also reverse the rejection of these claims under 35
U.S.C. § 103 in light of the collective teachings of Kawata
and Pfeiffer.
Turning lastly to the rejection of claims 1 through 96
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 in view of Murakami alone, we also
reverse this rejection.
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
7
Essentially, we agree with the positions advocated by
appellant in the brief beginning at page 17. Murakami appears
to us as well not to make any mention of write priorities in
storing the results of arithmetic operations nor of any write
priorities associated with storing any data move or data
transfer operations therewith. The final rejection as well as
the answer do not mention write priority as recited in each
claim on appeal, and we observe as did the appellant at page
17 of the brief that the final rejection admits that Murakami
does not disclose this subject matter.
Appellant quotes column 23, lines 35-48 of Murakami,
which appears to be the major or only basis the examiner
relies upon to urge the analogousness of additional branch
decision unit operations to conditional storage operations.
The examiner admits at page 6 of the answer that Murakami does
not explicitly
teach executing a conditional store operation for selectively
storing either the result of an operation or a value of a
predetermined memory into a designated memory location
depending upon the condition value.
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
8
Essentially, we agree with the appellant's most
succinctly stated argument in the paragraph bridging pages 18
and 19 of the brief. There, appellant indicates that Murakami
is directed to conditional branching, whereas the subject
matter of each claim on appeal is directed to conditional
storage. As noted by appellant, conditional branching is
concerned with control of the program sequencing, whereas
conditional storage deals with that of the data stored.
The examiner's attempt to analogize conditional branching
operations to conditional storage operations is not well
taken. The urging at the bottom of page 6 of the answer that
it would have been obvious to have allowed a particularly
detailed
if-then-else conditional storage operation (claims 46-96)
fails because the examiner has already admitted that a generic
conditional store operation is not explicitly taught in the
reference, and yet, there is no additional evidence provided
by the examiner to persuade us that it would have been obvious
to
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
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the artisan to have extended the teachings of conditional
branching to any type of conditional storage. The examiner's
position at the top of page 14 of the answer that a
conventional conditional write or move operation is
implemented by a branch instruction is misplaced since the
examiner has already admitted in the statement of the
rejection at page 6 of the answer that such conventionally is
not taught in Murakami.
Therefore, since the examiner's evidence of obviousness
in Murakami, as well as the examiner's reasoning within 35
U.S.C.
§ 103 are insufficient and unpersuasive to us, we must reverse
the rejection of each independent claim 1, 11, 21, 46, 58 and
70 as well as each of their respective dependent claims.
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
10
In summary, we have reversed each of various rejections
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 of claims 1 to 96 on appeal. Therefore,
the decision of the examiner is reversed.
REVERSED
JAMES D. THOMAS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
KENNETH W. HAIRSTON ) BOARD OF
PATENT
Administrative Patent Judge ) APPEALS AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
ERROL A. KRASS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
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JDT/cam
Appeal No. 97-1303
Application 08/160,300
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Robert D. Marshall, Jr.
Texas Instruments Incorporated
P. O. Box 655474
Dallas, TX 75044