Appeal No. 2005-0261
Application No. 09/682,473
position. The examiner also responds that the signal Vout of
Matsumoto can be interpreted as a clock signal. The examiner
cites a patent to Tran to support this position [answer, pages 4-
6].
Appellants respond that the claimed differential sinusoidal
signal pair must be interpreted in the manner in which it is
defined in the specification. Appellants also respond that the
examiner pointed to no teaching or motivation in Wissell or in
Matsumoto for combining their respective teachings. Appellants
assert that the examiner’s position is based on nothing more than
broad and conclusory statements [reply brief, pages 1-7].
We will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 8 and
13 for essentially the reasons argued by appellants in the
briefs. The general rule that terms in a claim are given their
broadest reasonable interpretation during prosecution is not
applicable when the terms have been given a specific definition
in the specification. As noted by appellants, the differential
sinusoidal signal pair has been defined in the specification as
applying to signals which differ by 180 degrees. Therefore, the
quadrature related signals of Wissell fail to teach the claimed
signal pair. We also agree with appellants that Matsumoto has
nothing to do with generating a clock signal so that there is no
6
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