Appeal No. 2006-2819 Page 5
Application No. 10/980,575
[0022] of the description in the specification refers to the “bounding region” but never
explains what this entails. Accordingly, in view of the broad recitation of “determining a
bounding region” in the claim and the lack of any specific explanation of this term in the
specification, we find that Gould’s disclosure of pin shapes 240, appearing to set
boundary regions with grid sections 235 meets the claim language.
Appellants argue that Gould does not disclose the claimed “routing a plurality of
shortest distance connections from a plurality of power sources to said robust power
grid.” Again, we disagree.
As the examiner indicates, in Figure 10 of Gould, connections 220 connect power
sources 200 to various portions of the power grid sections by connecting to the pin shapes
240 which are part of the power grid sections 235. We also note that Gould teaches that
the router algorithm used may include making “connections as small as possible”
(column 3, line 62). It appears to us that a disclosure of making connections “as small as
possible” is a pretty clear teaching, or clear suggestion, of routing “shortest distance
connections” from power sources to the power grid.
We are not convinced by appellants’ argument that Gould’s teachings are related
to PST-to-pin shape assignments and not related to “routing…sources to said second
robust power grid” (reply brief-page 3). Gould is routing connections (column 3, lines
55-57, describes an “auto-router…used to select and implement one actual PST to pin
shape connections for each PST from all the potential PST to pin shape connections for
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Last modified: November 3, 2007