Appeal No. 1997-3134
Application 08/434,163
The Examiner has failed to set forth a prima facie case of obviousness. It is the burden of the
Examiner to establish why one having ordinary skill in the art would have been led to the claimed
invention by the express teachings or suggestions found in the prior art, or by implications contained in
such teachings or suggestions. In re Sernaker, 702 F.2d 989, 995, 217 USPQ 1, 6 (Fed. Cir. 1983).
Appellants argue on pages 8 and 9 of the brief that Andrews teaches away from using a test
access port (TAP) for functional testing. Appellants point out that Andrews teaches a built-in current
monitor for sensing and measuring static current in CMOS and MOS circuit modules of IC devices.
Appellants point out that Andrews teaches that static current testing is preferable to traditional logical
function testing in column 1, lines 16 through 34 and column 1, line 54 through column 2, line 3.
Appellants point out that Andrews specifically states in the background section that "static current
testing provides substantially greater accuracy than traditional logical testing by voltage measurements,
sometimes referred to as 'stuck at fault' testing or functional testing." Appellants cited column 1, lines
30 through 34. Appellants argue that this is a teaching away from the invention claimed by the
Appellants and that the Appellants' present invention, contrary to the teachings of Andrews, claims the
use of the TAP for functional testing.
On page 12 of the brief, Appellants argue that neither nor Swoboda teach reading from or
writing to control registers in the microprocessor. Appellants point out that Appellants' independent
claim 1 recites "in a write operation, said control register unit causing data to be transferred from said
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