Appeal No. 1998-3424
Application No. 08/315,792
power consumption because cell locations are continuously powered up and enabled for
read or write operation.
Further, regardless of appellant’s arguments regarding dissimilar problems and no
disclosure by the references of the “affirmative steps taken to prevent the transitions” in
the instant invention, Ward clearly discloses the invention as broadly set forth by the
instant claims. For example, claim 1 calls for controlling the output “so no transition
occurs…when a read command is supplied to the device without a write command being
supplied to the device.” Ward, at the identified portion of column 8, clearly meets this
claim language in that the read clock generator 82 is disabled until at least one write
operation occurs. This portion of Ward similarly meets the language of instant claim 5
since no transition occurs at the output in response to a command for erasing all entries
in the device [Note lines 52-54 of column 8 of Ward which discloses that the empty
condition prevents further read./write pulses.]. In a similar manner, since independent
claim 8 recites an output control responsive to either one of the conditions of claims 1
and 5, claim 8 is met by Ward. Claim 13 is also met for similar reasons.
With regard to claim 17. Appellant argues [brief-page 11] that neither of the
references talks about setting the write pointer value to equal the stored reader pointer
value after reading a last unread value in response to reception of a read command if the
read command is received without a corresponding reception of the write command.
However, Ward, for example, recites that the reset signal sets both pointers to the same
address [column 8, lines 55-56] and this is apparently done after reading the last unread
value, i.e., an empty condition.
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