Appeal No. 97-2657
Application 08/359,286
occupation and an arbiter 6 for giving an allowance signal to
a particular bus master selected on the basis of bus
occupation time from the counter 5 and bus request signals
from the bus master.
The Federal Circuit states that "[t]he mere fact
that the prior art may be modified in the manner suggested by
the Examiner does not make the modification obvious unless the
prior art suggested the desirability of the modification." In
re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 n.14, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84
n.14 (Fed. Cir. 1992), citing In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902,
221 USPQ 1125, 1127 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
We fail to find that Watanabe suggests modifying the
arbitration system which is based upon bus duration times to
an
arbitration system based upon minimum access intervals
associated with the device and timers which keep track of the
elapsed time since each device last has had access to the bus.
Therefore, we will not sustain the Examiner's rejection of
claims 1 through 16 as being unpatentable over Watanabe under
35 U.S.C. § 103.
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