Appeal 2007-1427
Application 09/826,240
independent claim 21 as being anticipated by Mittal for the same reasons
discussed supra with respect to representative claim 28.
Dependent claim 22
We consider next the Examiner’s rejection of claim 22 as being
anticipated by Mittal.
Appellant argues that Mittal does not teach a switching counter
configured to determine the transition rate of the at least one node but
instead discloses an up/down counter that indicates the current utilization of
a monitored functional unit (col. 6, ll. 13-16) (Br. 11).
When we look to Appellant’s Specification for context, we find only a
single mention of the claimed “switching counter” described as an
incremental counter:
The output of the aggregator 220 is then read by a switching
counter or an incremental counter 230. A value of a stored
memory of the incremental counter 230 may then be increased
by a function of the output of the aggregator 220. An output of
incremental counter 230 is then utilized by the mode selection
circuit 257 as will be explained below. After a predetermined
interval, the value of the incremental counter 230 will then be
reset to the value of “zero” by the timing circuit 235 [emphasis
added].
(Specification 12, ¶ 0021).
We broadly but reasonably construe the recited “transition rate” as a
clock rate or frequency (or as a function of same). Because Mittal discloses
an incremental counter (i.e., an up/down counter that in one mode
increments its contents by one during each clock cycle, col. 6, ll. 12-25), we
agree with the Examiner that the language of the claim reads on the
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