Appeal No. 96-0166
Application 08/083,419
(normal) mode and the internal buses 12, 16, and 18 are not.
The examiner's rejection, which relies on internal buses 12,
16, and 18 as the "bus means" is inconsistent with the
language of claim 1. The rejection of claim 1 and dependent
claims 2, 3, and 18-20 is reversed.
Although we have reversed the rejection of claim 1, we
address two of appellants' arguments for completeness.
Appellants argue that "[i]t follows from a reading of Powell
et al. that the modules are incapable of communicating among
themselves as in the environment of Applicants' invention
during test mode" (Br9) and that "['] ... [t]he present
invention permits the bus access circuitry of each subsystem,
and the bus itself, to be tested by pseudo-random scan testing
methodology without restricting bus access to only one
subsystem, and distributing that access during the test to all
subsystems'" (Br10, citing the specification, page 4). Thus,
appellants argue that claim 1 requires that the units
communicate over the bus during the test mode. The examiner
correctly discusses (EA8-9) that communication among the units
via the bus during the test mode is not claimed, expressly or
impliedly. Claim 1 recites that "only one of the bus enable
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