<I thought the issue was that the insturction group and operand could be either right, left or center justified (whatever the heck that means).

has that changed opty? >

IMHO the issues that were being dealt with in the final office action included decoding, boundaries, predetermined postion, instruction register, inappropriate means argument to support a method, and improperly reading limitations from sepecification into a claim. I believe that's it.

Corrections welcomed. Opty