Appeal No. 2006-0167
Application No. 10/186,263
office personnel must rely on appellant’s disclosure to properly determine the
meaning of the terms used in the claims. Markman v. Westview Instruments,
Inc., 52 F3d 967, 980, 34 USPQ2d 1321, 1330 (Fed. Cir. 1995). “[I]nterpreting
what is meant by a word in a claim ‘is not to be confused with adding an
extraneous limitation appearing in the specification, which is improper.’”
(emphasis original) In re Cruciferous Sprout Litigation, 301 F.3d 1343, 1348,
64 USPQ2d 1202, 1205, (Fed. Cir. 2002) (citing Intervet America Inc v. Kee-
Vet Laboratories Inc., 887 F.2d 1050, 1053, 12 USPQ2d 1474, 1476 (Fed. Cir.
1989). Thus, we do not find that claim 1 requires obtaining the timing model as a
result of monitoring, but rather that indications of the timing are derived as a
result of monitoring user interaction. Appellant’s specification identifies that
these indication may be “hints” and may include “likely timing properties of logical
blocks.” Thus, we do not consider “indications of timing properties” to be
synonymous with “timing model”.
We find, as the examiner asserts, Chang teaches a block based design
methodology for integrated circuits. Further, we find that Chang, in Figure 1, and
column 9, lines 55 through 65, teaches that timing verification can be performed
at each stage of design, thus implying that timing information is derived at each
stage of design. Accordingly, we are not persuaded by appellant’s arguments
that the examiner has not set forth a prima facie case of anticipation and, we
sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 1 through 10, 14 through 23 and 27
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e).
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