Appeal No. 2005-0001
Application No. 09/268,902
In this case, the instant invention, Mitsuhashi and Huddleston are all
concerned with improving the designing and laying-out of semiconductor
devices, and are therefore analogous. ….
The Examiner asserts that, as noted above, the invention of
Mitsuhashi does teach accepting information for at least one power zone
of the integrated circuit core. The Examiner further remarks that Appellant
neglects to mention the teachings of Huddleston, specifically prompting
the user to enter values for the length and width of the semiconductor
core/die on which a plurality of cells are to be arranged (i.e. accepting
design information of the integrated circuit core entered in response to a
prompt) (column 4, lines 34-47). Therefore, the combination of Mitsuhashi
and Huddleston teaches all [of] the features of the instant invention as
claimed.
We concur with the examiner’s rationale. We note that claim 1 does not
call for the entry of length and width of the semiconductor in response a prompt,
nonetheless these values are related to the design of the integrated circuit. We
also note that neither the examiner nor the appellant has provided a definition of
what is meant by the claim limitation “in response to a prompt.” One definition
for the term prompt is “to induce an action.”2 The examiner’s statement of the
rejection on page 5 of the answer states, “the program first requires (i.e. prompts)
the user to enter values” thus suggesting that the examiner applied a similar
meaning to the term prompt. Appellant’s specification does not define or
use the term “prompt,” however in numerous instances the appellant’s
specification discusses a user entering design information, see for example page
13, line 24. Thus, we find that the meaning of the claim limitation “in response to
a prompt” means in response to an inducement.
2 Definition from The Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition 1982.
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