Appeal No. 95-4636
Application 08/027,868
that regard, we reject the appellants' argument: "While it is
true that the Crowdis patent also teaches the similar
function, the caller ID number is retrieved through the FPGA
circuitry in Applicants' data terminal." The appellants have
not shown where in any rejected claim is the requirement that
the caller ID number is retrieved through the FPGA circuitry.
What Butler clearly does not disclose is the claimed
field programmable gate array (FPGA) which receives a
plurality of control signals, address signals, data signals,
and sensed signals from around the data terminal, and provides
a plurality of gated outputs. Moreover, according to claim 6,
the UART must be connected to an 8-bit data bus which connects
to the plural gated output digital ports from the field
programmable gate array.
With regard to the "FPGA" feature of the invention, the
examiner states (answer at 5):
FPGAs are again well known in the art for allowing
the user to program an integrated circuit to a
specific need such as generation of complex logic
functions as an alternative to more expensive
applications specific integrated circuits. The
number and order of FPGAs, and the number of
resident logic gates is apparently an obvious matter
[of] design that will depend on the [a] system
requirement. Thus, it would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the
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