The term CPU is not clearly understood by the examiner. In the Kato patent clock 1 is fed only to a volatage detection circuit which does not process data. In the 336 clock 1 is fed to circuitry that processes data. However in the rejection letter the examiner concludes that the entire chip is a CPU and since clock 1 is clearly connected to the chip it feeds the CPU. To resolve this problem the term CPU has to be clearly distinguished in the claim.

The 336 is innovative because the I/O is able to function at a different frequency from the data processing logic. Therefore data from the outside can be fed into the chip at frequency X and then subsequently used by the CPU operating at frequency Y. In Kato X and Y are the same. While there is a first clock (clock 141) it is not used to process data and I get the feeling that the examiner has not read the entire Kato patent since he clearly does not understand this. Going from one clock domain to another is not a simple matter and it is not obvious from Kato/Ledzius. When going from one clock domain to another data can be sampled incorrectly and the CPU can therefore process the data incorrectly. So to assume that the indepent clocking scheme outlined in the 336 is obvious from Kato is extremely flawed.