Appeal No. 2004-1608
Application 09/752,873
Therefore, the Ayukawa publication is entitled to the actual
filing date of the grandparent application that claimed the
benefit of the international application which is August 16,
1999. Since August 16, 1999 is before the filing date of
appellant’s application, Ayukawa does qualify as prior art
against the claims on appeal.
The examiner’s rejection is set forth in the final
rejection which has been incorporated into the answer at page 4.
The examiner essentially finds that Brauer teaches the claimed
cache memory except that Brauer does not teach the claimed global
bitline. The examiner cites Ayukawa as teaching a global bitline
in a cache environment. The examiner finds that it would have
been obvious to the artisan to use a global bitline in Brauer for
the advantages taught by Ayukawa.
As a general argument, appellant notes that the claimed
invention uses a global bitline which eliminates the need for a
multiplexer as used in Brauer. Appellant argues that the artisan
would not have been motivated to modify the disclosure of Brauer
with the global bitline of Ayukawa. Specifically, appellant
argues that nothing in Brauer suggests that the multiplexer is
not required, and that the cache in Ayukawa is not an associative
cache like the cache in Brauer. Appellant argues that the
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