Appeal No. 1997-3156
Application No. 08/372,423
Claims 24, 26, 28-30 and 32 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Swapp.
Reference is made to the briefs and answer for the respective positions of
appellants and the examiner.
OPINION
We reverse.
We have reviewed the evidence before us including, inter alia, the arguments of
appellants and the examiner and we agree with appellants that the instant claimed subject
matter would not have been obvious, within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 103, based on the
evidence provided by Swapp.
Each of the independent claims requires, inter alia, the monitoring of the core
temperature of an integrated circuit and a control for changing the operating frequency of
the integrated circuit when a voltage level of an integrated signal indicates that a phase
delay between an output signal on an output pin of the integrated circuit and a clock signal
is longer than a predetermined value.
Although Swapp mentions nothing about monitoring core temperature of an
integrated circuit, the examiner contends that Swapp can be used for determining
temperature changes because propagation delays are known to be caused by
temperature changes and Swapp measures propagation delays. Appellants argue that
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