Appeal No. 2001-2593
Application No. 09/074,197
conclude that latch registers 43 and 51 must be the same as latch
registers 24-29 and are, therefore, clocked (brief, page 6).
In response, the Examiner points out that the latches in
Goldschmidt do delay the input signals by a predetermined amount
and are unclocked since no clock signals are disclosed (answer,
page 5). The Examiner further argues that the fact that the
latches are described as “gated” does not mean that they are
clocked unless they are gated by a clock signal, which is not
disclosed in Goldschmidt (id.).
A rejection for anticipation under section 102 requires that
the four corners of a single prior art document describe every
element of the claimed invention, either expressly or inherently,
such that a person of ordinary skill in the art could practice
the invention without undue experimentation. See Atlas Powder
Co. v. Ireco Inc., 190 F.3d 1342, 1347, 51 USPQ2d 1943, 1947
(Fed. Cir. 1999); In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1478-79, 31 USPQ2d
1671, 1673 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
After reviewing Goldschmidt, we agree with Appellants’
assertion that the claimed unclocked delay elements, are not the
same as the latch registers disclosed in the reference.
Goldschmidt describes an adder for generating the final sum for a
plurality of simultaneously applied operands (abstract and Col.
4
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