Appeal No. 2003-0008
Application No. 09/174,936
We recognize that the Examiner, in the “Response to
Arguments” portion of the Answer at page 6, has taken the
position that in Martell “instructions are still in the decode
stage as long as they are not executed.” We find no basis,
however, either in the Martell reference itself, or in the
Examiner’s line of reasoning, that would support such a
conclusion. The Examiner must not only make requisite findings,
based on the evidence of record, but must also explain the
reasoning by which the findings are deemed to support the
asserted conclusion. See In re Lee, 277 F.3d 1338, 1343,
61 USPQ2d 1430, 1433-34 (Fed. Cir. 2002). In our view, any fair
reading of the disclosures of Martell and Shiell, would lead to
the conclusion that, unlike the limitations set forth in the
appealed claims, the predicate evaluation operations and,
particularly, the annulling operations in each of these
references are not taking place in the decode stage of the
processor.
We are further of the opinion that even assuming, arguendo,
that proper motivation were established for the Examiner’s
proposed combination of references, we fail to see how and in
what manner the references could be combined to arrive at the
specific combination set forth in the appealed independent
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