Appeal 2006-3235
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,696
1 Appellant also places undue reliance on the fact that the sole example
2 of a hot spot given in the ‘857 patent is a hot spot generated by a failed
3 diode. The passage in question reads:
4 For a typical pointed source hot spot of a typical
5 integrated circuit (for example, a filament type of short in
6 the diode of a[n] input pad of a DL 2416 integrated
7 circuit), this method has been shown to be able to locate
8 the center of the hot spot within 0.3 microns.
9 Specification, col. 7, ll. 55-59. This discussion of a specific example would
10 not have been understood to restrict Appellant’s field of endeavor to failure
11 analysis. In the first place, the short-circuited diode is characterized as a
12 “typical pointed source hot spot,” not as a “typical hot spot.” Second, even
13 if the passage had characterized a short-circuited diode is a “typical hot
14 spot,” its effect would simply have been to identify a nonlimiting example of
15 a hot spot.
16 For the foregoing reasons, the relevant field of endeavor set forth in
17 the specification appears to be the analysis of defective and nondefective
18 integrated circuits by using the phase transition property of liquid crystal
19 materials to detect “hot spots,” i.e., areas having a temperature in excess of a
20 predetermined temperature.
21 As further evidence that the field of endeavor of the ‘857 patent would
22 have been understood to be limited to failure analysis, Appellant relies on
23 the 37 C.F.R. § 1.132 declarations by Jung and Lim, each of whom
24 identified his area of expertise as failure analysis, Jung Decl. para. 3; Lim
25 Decl. para. 1, and testified that a person having ordinary skill in the art of
26 failure analysis would have understood the ‘857 patent to be limited to
27 failure analysis. Jung Decl. para. 8; Lim Decl. para. 5. For purposes of this
28
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