Appeal No. 2005-0303
Application No. 09/928,884
functions to the main circuit assembly 12” arguing that the claimed “partitioned circuits”
must perform “functions.”
We disagree. The portion of the specification to which appellants allude offers no
specific definition of the term “partitioned circuits” and we are unsure as to what specific
meaning appellants are attempting to give this term. If appellants are urging that there
must be some “function” associated with a partitioned circuit, in accordance with
paragraph 15 of the specification, we initially note that the cited portion of the
specification recites that the partitioned circuit “may” be utilized to add functions. Thus,
by appellants’ own specification, a partitioned circuit need not necessarily perform
functions, but it is merely permissible to perform functions. We note, further, that even
considering a partitioned circuit to perform functions, it can be said that the fuse 16 of
Natsume performs a function, i.e., it performs a safety function of protecting a circuit in
case of an overload.
With regard to appellants’ argument that the Natsume elements relied on by the
examiner are merely electrical components within a circuit assembly and do not
constitute circuit assemblies themselves, we are not persuaded. As broadly claimed,
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007