Appeal 2007-1293
Application 10/745,124
The Examiner contends that the rejections proper. The Examiner states that:
-Firstly, none of the rejected claims recites any magnitude or range of
duration for single event transients. Therefore, Appellant’s arguments based
on the orders of duration are moot.
Answer 6.
Initially, we note that Appellant’s Brief groups claims 1 through 3, 9, and 10
together. Thus, in accordance with 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii), we group claims 1
through 3, 9, and 10 together and will treat independent claim 1 as the
representative claim of the group. Thus, Appellant’s contentions present us with
the issue of whether Lieder teaches an RC delay circuit which has a time constant
sufficient to prevent single event transients from adversely affecting the logic
circuit as recited in independent claim 1.
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
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 F.3d 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.’” In re
Cruciferous Sprout Litigation, 301 F.3d 1343, 1348, 64 USPQ2d 1202, 1205, (Fed.
Cir. 2002) (emphasis in original) (citing Intervet Am., Inc. v. Kee-Vet Labs., Inc.,
887 F.2d 1050, 1053, 12 USPQ2d 1474, 1476 (Fed.Cir.1989)).
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