Appeal No. 2000-0702
Application 08/653,306
cannot be ascribed to a function of element 111 alone. Moreover,
we note that an exclusive OR (XOR) gate is a specialized OR gate,
and both are known as adder devices, rather than multipliers.
Therefore, Naka does not provide the recited multiplier device of
claim 4.
Appellants further argue (brief at page 14) that “neither
Rein nor Naka provide . . . a teaching, suggestion or incentive,
absent hindsight judgment in view of this application.” The
Examiner responds (answer at page 8) that “[i]n this case, the
Naka reference provides a clock signal (b) with a constant duty
ratio and the Rein reference shows a clock pulse T coupled to the
input of the master-slave flip flop. Thus, it would have been
obvious . . . to employ the clock signal (b) of Naka as the clock
signal (T) of Rein to provide a clock signal with a constant duty
ratio so that the clock signal is always present without
distortion for normal operation of the master-slave flip-flop.”
We disagree with the Examiner’s position. The Federal Circuit
has held that “[the] mere fact that the prior art may be modified
in the manner suggested by the Examiner does not make the
modification obvious unless the prior art suggested the
desirability of the modification.” In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260,
1266 n.14, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84 n.14 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (citing
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