Appeal No. 1999-0440
Application 08/813,706
The examiner has indicated how he finds claim 4 to be
obvious in view of the collective teachings of Ota, Glick and
Odaka [Paper No. 14, pages 2-5]. Part of this finding is the
examiner’s statement that Ota teaches a sound data output unit
having a memory to store sound data. Appellants argue that
the voice signal processing section of Ota does not have any
memories for storing only sound data as recited in claim 4.
Appellants also argue that the video memories of Glick do not
establish that it would have been obvious to the artisan to
provide sound memories in a sound data output unit for storing
only sound data as claimed. Finally, appellants argue that
the examiner’s statement that the concept of having dedicated
memory to handle specific data is old and well known in the
art of microprocessor circuit design does not factually
establish the requisite prospective motivation to support a
prima facie case of obviousness [brief, pages 8-10].
The examiner admits that Ota does not teach separate
audio only memories, but the examiner contends that Glick
teaches the concept of providing separate, special (dedicated)
memories for specific types of data, that is, VRAM for storing
video data. The examiner finds that it would have been
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007