Appeal No. 1996-3391 Page 7
Application No. 08/160,573
Referring to Chu’s Figure 12, appellants argue that this
figure shows that the only way that the ALU of Chu can form a
mixed arithmetic and Boolean combination of three inputs “is by
first forming an arithmetic combination of the R and S inputs
and then masking this according to the M input.” This, contend
appellants, is in the opposite order required by the claims,
wherein a Boolean function is performed “prior to an arithmetic
operation.”
We find appellants’ argument in this regard to be
unpersuasive. First, even assuming, arguendo, that appellants
are correct in their assessment, and that Chu discloses only
one order of operation, i.e., arithmetic combination followed
by a Boolean operation, since appellants have shown no
criticality to the specific order of operations, the skilled
artisan would have understood, and found obvious, that, without
a showing to the contrary, the order of operations performed
should have no bearing on the final result, as in A + B = B + A
= C. Now, we understand that this associative law may only
apply to simple additive and subtractive operations and not to
operations involving, say, addition and multiplication since A
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007