Appeal 2007-1427
Application 09/826,240
Accordingly, we will sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 24 as being
anticipated by Mittal for the reasons set forth in the Answer.
Dependent claim 25
We consider next the Examiner’s rejection of claim 25 as being
anticipated by Mittal.
Appellant argues that Mittal does not teach a timing counter
configured to track a period of operation of a reconfigurable circuit and a
switching counter configured to employ the period of operation to determine
a transition rate (Br. 13).
The Examiner disagrees. The Examiner argues that Mittal discloses a
switching counter (i.e., an up/down counter) configured to determine a
transition rate. The Examiner further argues that a “timing counter must be
used to keep track of the period of time.” (Answer 8, last paragraph).
We find Mittal discloses an up/down counter that, in one embodiment,
increments its contents by one during each clock cycle (i.e., switching
cycle), as discussed supra (see also Mittal, col. 6, ll. 12-19). With respect to
the recited timing counter, we again find the Examiner has provided a
rationale in the Answer that reasonably supports the finding of inherent
anticipation. We find nothing in the Reply Brief that specifically addresses
the Examiner’s finding that a timing counter must be used to keep track of
the period of time.” (See Answer 8, emphasis added). Therefore, we again
find Appellant has not met the burden of proving that the subject matter
shown to be in the prior art does not possess the characteristic relied on by
the Examiner. Accordingly, we will sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
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