Appeal 2007-1098
Application 10/026,059
1 3. The Examiner also does not define or explain the meaning of “thermal
2 mass.”
3 4. The specification discloses that the thermal mass of an electronic
4 component is increased when a structure such as a metal or ceramic case is used
5 (Specification 6: 13-25).
6 5. The specification distinguishes augmenting an electronic component
7 with a metal or ceramic case to increase the component’s thermal mass, on the one
8 hand, from encasing the electronic component with a thermal insulator to isolate
9 the component from ambient air flow and temperature, on the other hand
10 (Specification 6: 13 through 7: 7; Figs. 2 and 3). Both methods are said to reduce
11 thermal drift in the electronic component, but only the former, not the latter, is said
12 to increase the thermal mass of the electrical component.
13 6. Claims 1 and 15 are the only independent claims on appeal. They
14 read as follows:
15 1. A circuit, comprising:
16 electronic component having an enclosure that protects the
17 electronic component;
18
19 structure that surrounds the enclosure and that reduces a
20 thermal drift of the electronic component by increasing a thermal
21 mass of the electronic component.
22
23 15. A distributed system having a set of nodes, each node
24 comprising:
25
26 local clock including a crystal component having an enclosure
27 that protects the crystal component;
28
29 structure that surrounds the enclosure and that reduces a
30 thermal drift of the crystal component by increasing a thermal mass of
31 the crystal component.
3
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