Appeal No. 96-2237
Application 08/113,509
ture could be capable of supporting a certain functionality
does not necessarily mean that it would have been obvious to
do so absent some independent evidence or argument to the
contrary. The mere fact that the examiner considers something
obvious because nothing may prohibit it is not persuasive
within 35 U.S.C. § 103 that some functionality would have been
obvious to the artisan. There is nothing within Johnson and
there is no persuasive approach argued by the examiner to us
that leads us to believe that the artisan would have prospec-
tively combined the teachings of both the pipelined and burst-
mode protocols into one common functionality based upon John-
son's teachings alone and the knowledge of the artisan com-
bined therewith.
As to independent claims 14 and 21, appellant argues
at the bottom of page 11 and again at the bottom of page 17
that "[a]s to both the pipelined and burst-mode protocol
processors, a second access completes only after the first
access completes."
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