Ex Parte Steele - Page 8

                 Appeal 2007-2270                                                                                        
                 Application 10/035,647                                                                                  


                                                     ANALYSIS                                                            
                                                 Claim Interpretation                                                    
                        Claim 1 recites an analyzer circuit configured to determine a first                              
                 status and a second status based on data within respective first and second                             
                 floating point operands.                                                                                
                        Claim 1 further recites a results circuit coupled to the analyzer circuit                        
                 and configured to “assert a resulting floating point operand containing the                             
                 result of the division of the first floating point operand by the second                                
                 floating point operand and a resulting status embedded within the resulting                             
                 floating point operand.”                                                                                
                        We interpret claim 1 as requiring at least: 1) a plurality of operands                           
                 each of which “containing” encoded status flag information, and 2) a result                             
                 circuit that produces a resulting floating point operand containing both a                              
                 result of the division and status information.                                                          
                        The language of claim 1 does not preclude the result of the division                             
                 and the status information from being represented by the same data within                               
                 the resulting floating point operand.  See FF 4 above for an example of a                               
                 floating point operand whose bits result in a value of “zero” and whose bit                             
                 string has been assigned a status of representing “zero.”1                                              



                                                                                                                        
                 1 We note that claim 1 would distinguish over the cited prior art if the claim                          
                 were amended to require a single resulting floating point operand that                                  
                 contains distinct parts which represent a value and encoded status                                      
                 information.                                                                                            
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