Appeal No. 2004-0909 Page 6
Application No. 09/053,398
(Fed. Cir. 1993) (citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444
(Fed. Cir. 1992)). "'A prima facie case of obviousness is established when the
teachings from the prior art itself would appear to have suggested the claimed subject
matter to a person of ordinary skill in the art.'" In re Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783, 26
USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (quoting In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1051, 189
USPQ 143, 147 (CCPA 1976)).
Here, Sites discloses "[a] method of performing byte operations in a processor. . .
." Col. 28, ll. 1-2. The method includes transferring or "storing [the] content of [an]
internal register means to [a] selected memory location," id. at ll. 17-18, where the
"internal register means ha[s] [plural] registers. . . ." Id. at ll. 4-5. As aforementioned,
the examiner asserts that the transferred content comprises "instructions or op-codes."
(Examiner's Answer at 4.) "'Every . . . reference relies to some extent upon knowledge
of persons skilled in the art to complement that [which is] disclosed. . . .'" In re Bode,
550 F.2d 656, 660, 193 USPQ 12, 16 (CCPA 1977) (quoting In re Wiggins, 488 F.2d
538, 543, 179 USPQ 421, 424 (CCPA 1973)). Those persons "must be presumed to
know something" about the art "apart from what the references disclose." In re Jacoby,
309 F.2d 513, 516, 135 USPQ 317, 319 (CCPA 1962). Here, an "opcode", i.e., an
operation code, is "[t]he portion of a machine language or assembly language
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