Appeal No. 2003-0351
Application 09/436,421
ordered and transferred in either a big endian format or a little
endian format, which format is determined by an encoded current
byte format bit. The examiner also asserts that appellants’
arguments are not commensurate in scope with the claimed
invention because the claims do not require a cache line-by-cache
line ordering of data. The examiner observes that the manner in
which data from the cache memory in Hunt is transferred to the
processor meets the dynamically selecting step of claim 1. The
examiner also argues that the byte order format in Hunt is set
when the application is started which is before any data is
transferred. The examiner asserts that this meets the issuing
the selected order bit set ahead of the data as claimed [answer,
pages 5-7].
We will sustain the examiner’s rejection of
representative claim 1, and therefore, of all the claims on
appeal. We agree with the examiner that claim 1 does not require
that the order of data transmission be decided on a cache line-
by-cache line basis. Claim 1 only recites that an order is
selected from several available orders for each line of the
cache. Although the dynamic selection in Hunt is made before the
data is stored in the cache memory, we find that the operation in
Hunt still meets the invention of claim 1. Specifically, if the
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