Appeal No.2003-1091
Application No. 09/484,248
(Fed. Cir. 1997).
In view of the above discussion, since all of the claimed
limitations are present in the disclosure of Butcher, the
Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection of claim 1 is sustained.
Turning to a consideration of the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) rejection of claim 14 based on Butcher, we note that,
while we found Appellant’s arguments to be unpersuasive with
respect to the anticipation rejection of claim 1, we reach the
opposite conclusion with respect to claim 14. In contrast to the
previously discussed language of claim 1 which requires only the
single step selection of “ . . . up to a plurality of delay
elements . . .,” the language of claim 14 clearly and
unambiguously recites the single step selection (or deselection)
of “ . . . two or more elements . . . .”
Our interpretation of the disclosure of Butcher coincides
with that of Appellant, i.e., while the end result of a value
shift in Butcher’s shift register 11 may be the addition or
removal of a delay element to an existing plurality of delay
elements as suggested by the Examiner (Answer, page 4), the
resulting plural delay elements have not been selected or
deselected in a single step. We further agree with Appellant
(Reply Brief, page 5) that, in order for Butcher’s described
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