Appeal No. 2000-1361 Page 5
Application No. 08/933,880
further characterizes Richardson’s claims 1 and 14 limitations of
“an enabling signal” that is provided by the comparators to
corresponding output registers, as the claimed enable signal sent
to the output register (answer, page 3).
With respect to the rejection of claims over Richardson, the
Examiner makes the following correspondence between the claim
elements and the circuit of figure 5 in Richardson: the “input
register” reads on registers 640 and 650; the “combinatorial
block” reads on multiplier 500 and comparator blocks 510-560; the
“output register” reads on registers 570-630 and 670; the
“analysis unit” reads on comparator blocks 510-560; and the
“enable signal” reads on the output from comparator blocks
510-560 to the registers 570-630 (answer, page 3).
We must make a couple of modifications and simplifications
of these findings to try to correspond claim 1 more precisely to
Richardson. For example, the Examiner uses the comparator blocks
510-560 as part of both the “combinatorial block” and the
“analysis unit.” They cannot be part of both elements. To
simplify the analysis, we read the “analysis unit” on the
comparator blocks 510-560. The “input register” clearly reads on
registers 640 and 650. We agree that the “output register” must
read on registers 570-630, if anything, because they are the only
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