Appeal No. 96-0908 Application 08/160,118 buses for comparison and sets the sign bit of the conditional code ('S' indicated at the register 15 in FIG. 1) to 0. This sign bit indicates that the result obtained by subtracting the content of the second bus from the content of the first bus is a positive value." (Col. 4, lines 52-57.) (1) Claims 1-3, 13-15, and 25-39 Appellants argue that the rejection fails to comply with the requirements of 37 CFR § 1.106(b) and fails to give appellants fair notice of the portions of the references relied on (Br4-5). The examiner's failure to comply with Patent and Trademark Office rules is a petitionable matter. The Board's jurisdiction is limited to those matters involving the rejection of claims. See In re Hengehold, 440 F.2d 1395, 1404, 169 USPQ 473, 480 (CCPA 1971). The examiner's reasoning in the Final Rejection could have been more detailed, but we understand what was intended. The references are not lengthy and the pertinence of each is apparent. The references as a whole are relied on, not just the portions mentioned by the examiner. Diefendorff discloses (col. 11, lines 26-30): "Alteratively [sic], a CONDITIONAL-STORE instruction executed - 9 -Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007