Appeal No. 2002-2309
Application No. 09/099,386
Appellants argue (brief, pages 7 through 11) that the prior
art (U.S. Patent No. 5,634,068 to Nishtala) discloses a memory
management system (i.e., a system controller 100) that uses
“duplicate cache tags,” that one of ordinary skill in the art
would recognize that their specification describes a system where
the memory management system need not maintain duplicate cache
tags, and that the declaration submitted by Jeffrey C. Stevens
demonstrates that the inventors were in possession of the idea of
a cache controller system which does not need to duplicate the
cache tags on the June 18, 1998 filing date of the application.
For an answer to appellants’ arguments, we turn to In re
Wohnsiedler, 315 F.2d 934, 937, 137 USPQ 336, 339 (CCPA 1963)
which states:
Though prior art may be used to show what matters
would lie within the knowledge of one skilled in the
art to explain ambiguities in an application, it cannot
be used to supply specific limitations not found
therein. The question is not what modification of
appellants’ disclosure might occur to one skilled in
the art, it is rather whether the invention they are
claiming is described in their specification.
The mere fact that appellants could have thought of the idea of a
cache controller system that does not need to duplicate the cache
tags on the filing date does not necessarily mean that they in
fact invented such an idea on that date. The Stevens’
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