Appeal No. 96-0137
Application 08/074,978
designs automatically are known and in the fourth full paragraph of the third sheet it is disclosed that
“Kontron’s LOG/iC can automatically select devices and partition your design” . The utilization of 2
price information, and automatic partitioning and fitting, in LOG/iC software, PLD Compiler Manual,
based on the above teachings in Small would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the
time appellants’ invention was made. Section 103 requires us to presume that the artisan has full
knowledge of the prior art in his field of endeavor and the ability to select and utilize knowledge from
analogous arts. In re Deminski, 796 F.2d 436, 442, 230 USPQ 313, 315 (Fed. Cir. 1986). This is
even more true with respect to like art such as applied by the examiner here.
In his answer, the examiner also relies on page C2 of the HP PLDDS Standard Utilities
document in responding to appellants’ arguments . The manual is relied on to establish that pin3
assignment is automatically generated in a system for device selection of the type at issue here. This
teaching is cumulative with respect to what is taught in the reference to Small and we agree with
appellants that what the manual teaches with respect to pin selection is not fully automatic but only
semi-automatic since the user of the system must manually click on a displayed icon. However, we
agree with the examiner’s alternate position that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
2In their Fig. 4, appellants disclose that one of the three main partitioning processes is fitting. In their brief,
appellants assert fitting involves device pin assignments. In the third full paragraph of its third sheet, the Small
reference discusses pin assignment in connection with the partitioning process.
3Although this manual is not included in the examiner’s statement of the rejection, we will treat it as so
included as it was relied on by the examiner in his final rejection and argued by appellants in their brief.
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