Appeal 2007-1862
Application 10/722,652
Our decision to reverse the rejection of independent claims 1 and 20
on appeal is consistent with Appellants’ best statement arguing for reversal
at the top of page 3 of the Reply Brief, which we reproduce here:
As is commonly known in the art of the present invention, a bond wire
typically refers to a thin wire used in a wire bonding process to
interconnect semiconductor pads on a die to package leads. As is
evident from Exhibit A of the Examiner’s Answer, the Examiner fails
to fully comprehend the concept of bond wires commonly known in
the art. More specifically, Exhibit A fails to show any such bond
wires, and thus, also fails to show a bond wire connecting a bond pad
with an internal bus. Instead, the Examiner incorrectly labels as bond
wires, elements of FIG. 3B that are clearly shown and described as
metal traces. As previously described throughout the application, the
responses and the Appeal Brief, the present invention is directed to a
bond wire connection, instead of a metal trace connection for the
purpose of lowering resistivity and reducing power distribution
voltage drop that normally occurs in metal traces routed from bond
pads to internal buses.
We note as well that the Examiner did not submit a Supplemental
Examiner’s Answer challenging these industry practices and what is
commonly known in the art.
On the other hand, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 19,
which recites that the plurality of bond pads and the at least one internal bus
“are connectable by at least one bond wire” without further specifying that
such a connection has been made. The artisan would well appreciate that the
die or integrated circuit device 300 in Figure 3B of Taylor presents a
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