Generalized sums of monotone operators

This Note has two general aims: first to show that the notion of variational sum of maximal monotone operators, introduced by Attouch, Baillon and Thera in [1] in the setting of Hilbert spaces, can be extended to the case of reflexive Banach spaces, keeping all of its properties. And second, to compare it with the usual pointwise sum and with the notion of extended sum proposed in our paper [8]. (C) 1999 Academie des sciences/Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.