Appeal No. 1997-1060
Application No. 08/172,848
consequence of our review, we have made the determinations
which follow.
We will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Saito.
Although we find that Saito teaches the steps of (1)
“configuring the device in a test mode” (col. 5, lines 41-44)
and (2) “sensing a first programmed signal indicating that
redundancy has been implemented on the device” (col. 6, lines
16-38), we are in general agreement with the appellant (Brief,
page 5) that Saito fails to teach the recited step of
“changing the state of at least one output pin when the first
signal has a preselected value.” The examiner, on page 4 of
the Answer, maintains that “substitution of a redundant
element (blowing of a fuse)” is precisely on point with the
Appellant’s claimed “state change of the output of a pin.” We
do not agree. The appellant argues on page 6 of the brief
that the output pin defined in claim 1 represents the output
pin of the device. In contrast, a review of the teachings of
Saito reveals that the step of blowing a fuse results in a
5
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