Appeal No. 1999-2574
Application No. 08/728,878
at the top of page 6 of the answer, citing from Webster’s II
New Riverside University Dictionary, 1994, monotonic refers to
“Designated sequences whose successive members either
consistently increase or decrease but do not oscillate in
relative value.” That is, even the examiner appears to agree
that a “monotonically decreasing width” is one that never
increases. As can be seen in Figure 10, each bus, 82, 84, 86
has a width which decreases as one moves from right to left.
See W3-W2-W1 in bus 82.
It is the examiner’s position, as explained in the answer
with regard to the Attachment A to the answer, that the width
of metal layer 82 is narrow at a, widens at b, narrows back to
c (which is even wider than a), widens to d and narrows back
to e. If the bus, or layer 82 in Figure 10 had the shape
attributed to it by the examiner, we would agree that the
width of such layer is not monotonically decreasing. However,
it is our view that the examiner’s explanation is faulty.
As is clear from the disclosure, the bus, or layer, 82
consistently narrows from a width W3 to width W2 to width W1.
Thus, the width is “monotonically decreasing.” The examiner
appears to think that certain parts of anode color stripes 50
4–
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