Appeal No. 2004-0040
Application No. 09/273,820
To properly construe the subject matter of the testing
performed in the body of representative claim 1, as well as its
corresponding independent system claim 15, the design tests of
the preamble are properly referred to by the testing functions in
the body of the claim as well as the context of the overall claim
being performing design tests in a circuit design environment, a
feature also present in the preamble. In contrast to the first
and second files requiring only “at least one” test, the
exclusion function at the end of claim 1 on appeal appears to
indicate that plural tests are found within each of these first
and second files.
In affirming the rejection set forth by the examiner, we do
not agree with appellant’s basic assertion repeated in the brief
and reply brief that Van Huben fails to disclose at least two
separate files, each of which stores a list of plural tests to be
excluded. This appears to be the principal argument of appellant
in the brief and reply brief. The examiner’s initial reliance
upon the library process including physical design checks on a
circuit design, such as the discussion at column 104 in Van
Huben, is consistent with the showing in figure 9 of various test
vectors existing within the environment of Van Huben’s overall
design control system. It is clear initially from the abstract
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