Appeal No. 97-4062 Page 5
Application No. 08/590,049
1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988)). With this in mind, we analyze the
appellants’ argument.
The appellants argue, “if presented with the problem
addressed by the present invention and the teachings of
Warchol, one of ordinary skill in the art would not arrive at
the claimed invention.” (Appeal Br. at 15.) In reply, the
examiner concludes, “breaking down the process into two steps,
intercepting and substituting, is just one obvious way of
implementing the automatic test instructions taught by
Warchol.” (Examiner’s Answer at 7.)
We agree with the appellants. Independent claim 1
specifies in pertinent part a CPU for “issuing a signal to a
memory to retrieve a requested instruction from said memory
when said CPU is booted, ... an interception and substitution
circuit, coupled to said CPU, capable of intercepting said
signal and providing an alternative instruction ... directing
said CPU to perform a diagnostic check of said computer ....”
Independent claims 11, 20, 28, and 31 specify similar
limitations. In short, the claims recite intercepting a
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