Appeal No. 1997-3134
Application 08/434,163
We note that our reviewing court states that "when determining obviousness, the claimed
invention should be considered as a whole; there is no legally recognizable 'heart' of the invention."
Para-Ordnance Mfg. v. SGS Importers Int'l, Inc., 73 F.3d 1085, 1087, 37 USPQ2d 1237, 1239
(Fed. Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 822 (1996), citing W. L. Gore & Assocs., Inc. v.
Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1548, 220 USPQ 303, 309 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S.
851 (1984). In addition, our reviewing court reasons in Para-Ordnance Mfg. Inc. v. SGS Importers
Int'l Inc., 73 F.3d 1085, 1088-89, 37 USPQ2d 1237, 1239-40 (Fed. Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 519
U.S. 822 (1996), that for the determination of obviousness, the court must answer whether one of
ordinary skill in the art who sets out to solve the problem and who had before him in his workshop the
prior art, would have been reasonably expected to use the solution that is claimed by the Appellants.
We agree with the Appellants that Andrews would have reasonably led those skilled in the art
away from the solution of reading in and reading out diagnostic instructions to the microprocessor as
claimed by Appellants to a solution of using a static current through the CMOS or MOS circuit.
Andrews teaches in column 1, lines 25 through 30, that testing using static current through the CMOS
or MOS provides substantially greater accuracy and traditional logic testing. Andrews further teaches
in column 5, lines 29 through 45, that the object of the invention is to provide a built-in current monitor
for sensing and measuring static current in CMOS and MOS circuits. When reading the Andrews
reference as a whole, we fail to find any teaching that would lead one of ordinary skill in the art to
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