Appeal No. 96-3513
Application No. 08/220,772
review, we will reverse the obviousness rejection of claims 1
through 11, 13 through 15, and 17 through 21.
Claim 1 requires "a latch responsive to one of said
neuron outputs and to said output gating function; and an
adder circuit . . . responsive to said latch output and to its
own output." Krutz includes a latch following an adder
circuit, such that the adder circuit is responsive to an input
and the latch output (which is the same as the adder circuit
output). The examiner states (Answer, page 2), that
Krutz forms the new total before it is known if the
applied number is or is not to be included in the
total to be stored in flip-flops 160. It would have
been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the
art at the time the invention was made to modify
Krutz by placing a gated latch before the adder,
rather than after the adder, because the same
function is being performed, namely the selective
addition of a plurality of numbers.
The examiner further asserts (Answer, page 3) that
Krutz states . . . that he places the latch after
the adder to increase the processing speed, thereby
implying that the latch could be placed before the
adder. Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the
art would readily realize that the latch location
does not affect the function performed. (emphasis
added)
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