Appeal No. 1997-0896
Application 08/141,610
the most frequently changing bits are located in the lower
significant bit positions within the sample words.
Accordingly, it can often happen that the most significant bit
positions do not contain any active bits. The most
significant active bit (MSAB) detector 68 identifies the MSAB
within a group of sample words, and supplies the identity of
the MSAB position to the address generator 72. Using this
information, the address generator can cause the scanning of
the bits of the group of words to start at the bit position in
the group of words at which the MSAB is located, the need to
scan all the bits thus being avoided. Thus, in Figure 12, for
example, the scanning could have started at bit position 10 in
word 0 rather than in bit position 11 in word 0.
(Specification-page 21, lines 21-35.)
Representative independent claim 1 is reproduced as
follows:
1. A data compression system for compressing M-bit data
words, where M is a plural positive integer, comprising:
group defining means for defining a group of N data
words, where N is a plural positive integer;
sequencing means for outputting bits of said group of N
data words as a set of bit streams, each bit stream
corresponding to a bit position in said M-bit data word and
3
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