Appeal No. 97-1057
Application 08/160,298
In our view, appellants’ interpretation of claim 1 is
not commensurate with the language of claim 1. Claim 1 does
not require that the two operand functions be implemented in
any specific manner. Claim 1 only recites that the ALU
receive a control function input and that the ALU perform the
operations A±B and A±C. The ALUs of Chu and Vassiliadis
clearly receive an input function control signal, and
Vassiliadis clearly performs the noted operations as pointed
out by the examiner. Appellants are attempting to import
their disclosed preferred embodiment into the claim which is
not appropriate. Claims are given their broadest reasonable
interpretation during prosecution before the Patent and
Trademark Office.
Since we have determined that the examiner has
presented a prima facie case for the obviousness of claim 1,
and since appellants have not presented a compelling reason to
find error in the examiner’s case, we sustain the rejection of
claim 1 and of claims 11-13, 39, 42, 51, 52 and 80 which are
grouped therewith.
We now consider the rejection of claims 2 and 43 which
are grouped together and of claims 3 and 44 which are grouped
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