Appeal No. 1997-1755
Application 08/163,447
suggestions. In re Sernaker, 702 F.2d 989, 995, 217 USPQ 1, 6
(Fed. Cir. 1983). “Additionally, when determining
obviousness, the claimed invention should be considered as a
whole; there is no legally recognizable ‘heart’ of the
invention.” Para-Ordnance Mfg. v. SGS Importer Int’l, Inc.,
73 F.3d 1085, 1087, 37 USPQ2d 1237, 1239 (Fed. Cir. 1995),
cert. denied, 117 S.Ct. 80 (1996) citing W. L. Gore & Assocs.,
Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1548, 220 USPQ 303, 309
(Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984).
We first take claim 1. After discussing individually the
applied references [answer, pages 3 to 4], the Examiner
asserts that “one would have been motivated to locate the
resistor between the common clock and the reference voltage as
taught in Lee et al. in combination with Lin et al. to enhance
the clock distribution ..., since it has been held that
rearranging parts of an invention involves only routine skill
in the art” [id. 4]. Appellants argue that Lee does not teach
the application of any “trimmable”, or other, elements to a
single clock signal to modify the skew of a series of clock
signals applied to a single input terminal, and the addition
of the teachings of Lin, admitted prior art, Irwin and Webster
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