Appeal No. 2004-0573
Application No. 09/406,017
Here, it really amounts to a scope of claim issue rather than an issue of
closeness of the applied prior art to the invention which appellants desired to set forth in
the claims. We find that appellants’ claim language is entitled to a rather broad
interpretation so that the applied prior art to Rostoker alone meets the claimed
invention.
With this said, we do not find that appellants’ arguments are commensurate in
scope with appellants’ claim language and therefore, these arguments are not
persuasive.
We address appellants’ specific arguments as follows. Appellants argue that the
specification describes verification events or specified states and that neither Rostoker
nor Rajan teach a simulation monitor that detects a design verification event using logic
expressions within the meaning and usage of the phrases as in the instant specification.
(Brief at page 10-11.) We do not find specific definitions of these phrases at the
indicated portions of appellants’ specification. Appellants’ specification merely provides
examples of functional events and general discussion thereof. Therefore, appellants
have not specifically defined these terms or phrases so as to limit the examiner’s
interpretation of the design verification events as appellants desire.
Appellants argue that neither Rostoker nor Rajan teach updating a database
when a specified design verification event identified in a logic expression is detected.
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