Appeal No. 2001-2125
Application No. 08/906,537
full adder. Initially, we would point out that the Examiner has
provided no evidence to support such an assertion. “[T]he Board
cannot simply reach conclusions based on its own understanding or
experience - or on its assessment of what would be basic knowledge
or common sense. Rather, the Board must point to some concrete
evidence in the record in support of these findings.” In re Zurko,
258 F.3d 1379, 1386, 59 USPQ2d 1693, 1697 (Fed. Cir. 2001). The
court has also recently expanded their reasoning on this topic in
In re Thrift, 298 F. 3d 1357, 1363, 63 USPQ2d 2002, 2008 (Fed. Cir.
2002).
We are further of the opinion that, even assuming arguendo
that the Examiner’s supposition was supported by a proper
evidentiary showing, there is no further showing that substituting
the multiplier array of De Angel for the multiplier 20 of Taborn
would necessarily result in a structure in which a “round bit”
would be introduced and processed at the accumulator stage of the
multiply/accumulator as claimed. Although the Examiner suggests
(Answer, pages 6 and 7) that the structure of Taborn modified with
De Angel would result in the adding of “round bits” in the
accumulator, we find such an assertion to be based solely on
unwarranted speculation. In order for us to sustain the Examiner’s
rejection, we would need to resort to impermissible speculation or
7
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