Appeal No. 1999-1608
Application No. 08/506,943
With regard to appellants’ last observation, while “signal crossovers” may be
“critical” to the instant invention, we find no mention of this “critical” element in independent
claim 17. Claim 22 brings in the concept of “crossover,” but appellants’ grouping of claims
indicates that this claim will stand or fall with independent claim 17.
As stated at pages 8-9 of the brief, appellants’ invention
is not concerned with reproducing a drawing or making a better pictorial
description, nor is it concerned with laying out conductor runs on a two
dimensional space. [The] invention is concerned with automatically
scanning a pictorial schematic depiction of an electronic circuit, extracting
information about the functional essence of the circuit, and utilizing that
information to describe the circuit for the purpose of manufacture of that
circuit, not a depiction thereof.
While Bhaskaran does disclose the concept of generating a non-pictorial
description of a scanned electric circuit, it is clear that the reference does not disclose or
suggest the details of the non-pictorial description. Instant claim 17 requires that
description to comprise “an identification and listing of the circuit’s components, the input
and output terminals of those components, and all interconnections among those input and
output terminals.”
Appellants accept the examiner’s characterization of Rostoker as “creating and
verifying a structural logic model of electronic design from a behavioral description,
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