Appeal No. 1997-2983 Page 13
Application No. 08/482,792
register and a memory. The limitations do not require using
the bus for context switching.
The combination of references would have suggested the
limitations. "Non-obviousness cannot be established by
attacking references individually where the rejection is based
upon the teachings of a combination of references.” In re
Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097, 231 USPQ 375, 380 (Fed. Cir.
1986)(citing
In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA
1981)). In determining obviousness, furthermore, a reference
“must be read, not in isolation, but for what it fairly
teaches in combination with the prior art as a whole.” Id.,
231 USPQ at 380.
Here, the rejection is based on a combination of AAPA,
Levy, and Delagi. Regarding the AAPA, the appellants admit
that MCUs were known to transfer data between a register in a
CPU and a memory to execute an interrupt, switch a task, or
call a subroutine. For example, they specifically concede,
"[a]t this time, data held in the registers must be
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