Appeal No. 94-4061
Application 07/659,683
We do not agree with the examiner, that any means that detects
watchdog instructions is equivalent to the means disclosed in the
specification. Our reviewing court in In re Bond, 910 F2d 831,
834, 15 USPQ2d 1566, 1568 (Fed. Cir. 1990) has stated:
While a "means-plus-function" limitation
may appear to include all means capable
of achieving the desired function, the
statute requires that it be "construed
to cover the corresponding structure,
material, or acts described in the
specification and equivalents thereof"
(emphasis in original).
A factor to consider in the determination of whether a prior art
element is an equivalent of the claimed element is whether the
prior art element performs the function in the claim in
substantially the same manner as the function is performed by the
corresponding element described in the specification i.e. whether
the prior art element is a structural equivalent of the claimed
element. Id. at 834, 15 USPQ2d at 1568.
In the instant case, appellant's claimed watchdog
decoder means is address decoder 16 which is depicted in Figure
1. Appellant discloses that address decoder 16 receives address
portions of each instruction executed by the microprocessor (Page
7, lines 11-14). Address decoder 16 does not respond to
addresses which do not result from the execution of watchdog
instructions (Page 7, lines 20-22). However, when address
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