Appeal No. 2000-1356 Application 07/979,772 obviousness rejection of claim 45 over Lee. Regarding claim 46, Appellants offer a mere conclusory statement. Anyway, we find that the branch instruction in Lee could obviously involve the resolution of a conflict regarding the use of the same shifter while different kinds of branch instructions are being processed. Therefore, we sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 46 over Lee. Regarding claim 47, Appellants offer no specific analysis other than a mere conclusory statement. At any rate, we find that when a decision is made such as the one shown by step H2 in fig. 6 of Lee, an artisan would have employed a single bit as a flag to denote the result of the decision. Consequently, we sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 47 over Lee. With respect to dependent claim 181, an artisan would have found it obvious to introduce additional arithmetic logic units to Lee’s processor to facilitate the processing of instructions. Therefore, we sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 181 over Lee. Claim 48 Appellants argue [brief, page 18] that “[a]s shown above, -8-Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007