Ex Parte Miguelanez et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 24, 2012

11134843 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 24, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 11/134,843 05/20/2005 Emilio Miguelanez TAI.1100 1795 39602 7590 09/25/2012 THE NOBLITT GROUP, PLLC 8800 NORTH GAINEY CENTER DRIVE SUITE 279 SCOTTSDALE, AZ 85258 EXAMINER BHAT, ADITYA S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2857 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/25/2012 PAPER Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte EMILIO MIGUELANEZ, JACKY GORIN, and ERIC PAUL TABOR ____________ Appeal 2010-001027 Application 11/134,843 Technology Center 2800 ____________ Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, SCOTT R. BOALICK, and GLENN J. PERRY, Administrative Patent Judges. RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1-40, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Sep. 22, 2008), the Answer (mailed July Appeal 2010-001027 Application 11/134,843 2 23, 2009), and the Reply Brief (filed Sep. 23, 2009) for the respective details. We have considered in this decision only those arguments Appellants actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments which Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). Appellants’ Invention Appellants’ invention relates to a test system which includes a tester configured to test a set of components on an individual substrate and to generate test data for the set of components. Further included is a local outlier identification system responsive to the tester to select from the test data a data subset corresponding to a spatially-related subgroup of components on the individual substrate, and to automatically identify local outliers in the data subset. See generally Spec. ¶¶ [0039], [0040], [0053], [0055]. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows: 1. A test system, comprising: a tester configured to test a set of components on an individual substrate and generate test data for the set of components; and a local outlier identification system responsive to the tester and configured to: select a data subset corresponding to a spatially-related subgroup of components on the individual substrate from the test data; and automatically identify local outliers in the data subset. The Examiner’s Rejection The Examiner’s Answer cites the following prior art references: Appeal 2010-001027 Application 11/134,843 3 Mydill US 6,574,760 B1 June 3, 2003 (filed Oct. 7, 1999) Madge US 6,782,500 B1 Aug. 24, 2004 (filed Aug. 15, 2000) Claims 1-40, all of the appealed claims, stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Mydill in view of Madge. ANALYSIS Appellants contend, with respect to the obviousness rejection of representative independent claim 1 based on the combination of Mydill and Madge, that the applied references, individually or collectively, do not teach or suggest all of the claimed elements.1 In particular, Appellants contend that, in contrast to the claimed invention, Mydill discloses testing all components on a wafer and using data from all of the tested components to determine anomalies, which are referred to as “outliers” in the appealed claims. According to Appellants, this is distinguished from selecting a data subset that corresponds to a subgroup of components to determine outliers as claimed (App. Br. 18; Reply Br. 2-3). We do not agree with Appellants as we find Appellants’ arguments are not commensurate with the scope of claim 1. While claim 1 requires that only a subset of data that corresponds to a subgroup of components is selected for outlier identification, there is no requirement that only a subgroup of components on a substrate be tested. Conversely, the testing of all components on a substrate, such as in Mydill, is not precluded by the 1 Appellants argue rejected claims 1-40 together as a group, making particular reference only to language appearing in independent claim 1. See App. Br. 18. Accordingly, we select claim 1 as representative. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Appeal 2010-001027 Application 11/134,843 4 claim language since the claimed testing of a set of components can reasonably be interpreted as encompassing all of the components on the substrate. Accordingly, in view of the above discussion, we find no error in the Examiner’s interpretation of Mydill as set forth at pages 8 and 9 of the Answer. As explained by the Examiner, the outlier components themselves identified as a result of the testing of the components on the wafer/substrate in Mydill can be reasonably interpreted as a subgroup of all of the components on the wafer/substrate (Fig. 1). Similarly, the test data corresponding to such identified outliers can be reasonably interpreted as a data subset of all of the test data. These outliers are automatically identified in correspondence to the type of test performed on the components, for example, the drain voltage Vdd test results illustrated in Mydill’s Figure 2 illustration. Appellants’ further argument (App. Br. 17; Reply Br. 3) that the applied references do not relate to “a spatially-related subgroup of components” is not persuasive. As alluded to by the Examiner (Ans. 10), any group of components on a wafer/substrate, such as the outlier subgroup of Mydill, has a geometric relationship to all of the other components on the same wafer/substrate. We also find no error in the Examiner’s application of Madge to Mydill (Ans. 8). In view of the above discussion, however, the Examiner’s reliance on Madge for providing a teaching of analyzing a component subgroup and a corresponding data subset of a wafer is cumulative to what is already disclosed by Mydill. Nonetheless, we find that Madge supplements Appeal 2010-001027 Application 11/134,843 5 the teachings of Mydill to buttress the Examiner’s conclusion that the claims are obvious over the combination of those references. For the above reasons, we find that the Examiner did not err in concluding that the combination of Mydill and Madge renders the cited claims unpatentable. Accordingly, the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of representative independent claim 1, as well as claims 2-40 not separately argued by Appellants, is sustained. CONCLUSION OF LAW Based on the analysis above, we conclude that the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-40 for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-40 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2010). AFFIRMED babc