Appeal No. 2002-1305 Page 4
Application No. 09/327,966
OPINION
Our opinion addresses the rejections in the following order:
• anticipation rejection of claims 1-6 and 8-20
• obviousness rejection of claim 7.
Anticipation Rejection of Claims 1-6 and 8-20
Rather than reiterate the positions of the examiner or the appellants in toto, we
address a point of contention therebetween. The examiner interprets Shupe as follows.
The method of Shupe et al. comprises applying a set of test vectors or
patterns (i.e., coverage items) to be used by a test verification program
(i.e., coverage group) during fault simulation of an electronic circuit. Each
of the test patterns in the program is converted into events, and each of
the events is scheduled into time slots (i.e., temporal triggering
events). During the verification process, the results of the simulation are
collected at each scheduled times of the events.
(Examiner's Answer at 4-5 (emphases added).) The appellants argue, "for the
definition of triggering event to be the same as either the 'event' or the 'time slot' of
Shupe, claim 1 would need to recite that the triggering event actually determines the
state itself, not when the state is to be collected." (Appeal Br. at 8.)
"Analysis begins with a key legal question -- what is the invention claimed?"
Panduit Corp. v. Dennison Mfg. Co., 810 F.2d 1561, 1567, 1 USPQ2d 1593, 1597 (Fed.
Cir. 1987). In answering the question, "the Board must give claims their broadest
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