Appeal No. 2001-0571 Page 4
Application No. 09/026,790
Appellant asserts (brief, page 6) that with respect to
Group 1 (claims 1-6 and 15) Gupte does not disclose at least the
features of “(i) identifying hardware elements in a generic
netlist; (ii) determining key pins for each of such identified
hardware elements; or (iii) extracting design structure and
hierarchy from a generic netlist.” With regard to Group 2
(claims 9, 10, 14, and 18-20) appellant asserts (brief, page 9)
that “[g]upte does not disclose at least the features of: (i)
determining key pins for identified hardware elements from a
generic netlist; or (ii) extracting critical design structure and
hierarchy from the generic netlist.” The examiner's position
(answer, page 13) is that appellant's specification (page 2)
defines a generic netlist as a netlist created from RTL code that
has not yet been correlated with a technology specific library of
cells. The examiner argues that when HDL code is not technology
specific, it must be considered generic, and that the arbitrary
HDL code is synonymous with appellant's definition of a generic
netlist. The examiner acknowledges (answer, page 14) that Gupte
does not use the term "generic netlist," but asserts that Gupte
teaches the elements of a generic netlist when Gupte specifies
and illustrates non-technology specific HDL code. The examiner
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007