Appeal No. 2001-2291 Page 5
Application No. 08/743,049
With respect to claim 1, the examiner finds that Liu teaches
the claimed invention except for the second transmit channels
being coupled to the first transmit channels for transmitting
data to the repeater and the first and second PHY devices being
integrated into a semiconductor device. With respect to the
first point, the examiner notes that Liu teaches the first and
second receive channels being shared in order to reduce the
overall pin count. The examiner finds that it would have been
obvious to the artisan to share the transmission bus of Liu as
well in order to further reduce the overall pin count. With
respect to the second point, the examiner takes “official notice”
that the concept and advantages of the integrated circuit were
well known in the art. The examiner finds, therefore, that it
would have been obvious to the artisan to integrate both PHY
devices to save space and cost [answer, pages 3-4].
Appellants argue that Liu does not suggest or provide
motivation to supply the limitations admitted by the examiner to
be missing. With respect to the first point, appellants note
that the motivation asserted by the examiner is the same
motivation discussed in Liu, yet Liu did not make the proposed
modification. With respect to the second point, appellants also
argue that the knowledge of semiconductor integration is
insufficient to motivate the artisan to integrate the PHY devices
of Liu on the same integrated circuit. Specifically, appellants
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007