Appeal No. 1999-2295
Application No. 08/418,797
After careful review of the applied prior art references in
light of the arguments of record, we are in agreement with
Appellant’s position as stated in the Briefs. While it is proper
for an Examiner to consider, not only the specific teachings of a
reference, but inferences a skilled artisan might draw from them,
it is equally important that the teachings of prior art
references be considered in their entirety. See In re Preda, 401
F.2d 825, 826, 159 USPQ 342, 344 (CCPA 1968); W.L. Gore &
Associates, Inc. V. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1548, 220 USPQ
303, 311 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984).
In particular, in order for us to accept the Examiner’s
conclusions in the present factual situation, we would have to
improperly selectively ignore significant portions of the
disclosure of the Chao reference. In our view, the skilled
artisan, considering the collective teachings of the Koufopavlou,
Chao, and Walp references, would be led away from the approach as
set forth in Appellant’s claims, i.e. the use of independent
processors to access independent tail and pointer memories of a
buffer queue. We reach this conclusion in view of the express
disclosure of the Figure 11 embodiment in Chao. As asserted by
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