Appeal No. 1999-1455
Application 08/753,556
claims. The examiner believes that one cannot determine the dimensions required by
these claims and whether the length is a minimum grid size according to the design
process or the finished device.
We reverse this rejection because the entire discussion of the written description of
the invention is based upon relative sizes known in the art and externally determined to this
scope of the claims on appeal. The appellants’ views expressed at the top of page 7 of
the principal brief on appeal indicating that the term “prescribed” as well as the terms
“predetermined” and “preselected” are conventionally used and understood by the artisan
as conventional claim drafting terms. The chip or circuit designer is the one who
determines the preselection which may be arbitrary. What is significant of the disclosed
and claimed invention in claims 8 through 10 is not that there is a prescription or
predetermined minimum channel length or width, but that the respective lengths or widths
are determined as being respective integer multiples of this prescribed or predetermined
minimum channel width or depth. Appellants are permitted to recite this feature in terms of
relative values. No actual dimensions are intended other than those that the artisan would
ordinarily ascribe. Therefore, since the questioned terminology is consistent with the
disclosed invention as well as reasonably defines what the artisan would have understood
the subject matter to pertain to, that is, its metes and bounds, the rejection must be
reversed.
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