T 2137/08 () of 2.8.2012

Summary of Facts and Submissions

I. This appeal concerns the decision of the examining division refusing the European patent application number 01 307 921.5.

In the contested decision, the examining division considered each of the requests on file at the time (main request and seven auxiliary requests) and found none to be allowable.

Concerning the main request, the examining division held that claim 1 lacked novelty over the prior art document US 5 825 202 (hereinafter D1).

II. With the statement of grounds of appeal (letter dated 23 October 2008), the appellant submitted amended sets of claims of a main request and first and second auxiliary requests.

III. The Board summoned the appellant to attend oral proceedings to be held on 2 August 2012.

In an annex to the summons the Board set out its preliminary observations on the appeal, making reference to document D1 and to the prior art document WO 99/56394 (hereinafter D2), which was cited in the European search report.

Considering the main request, the Board discussed the disclosures of D1 and D2 and questioned whether the subject-matter of claim 1 was novel and inventive over D1 or D2.

Considering the first auxiliary request, the Board noted that the amendment to claim 1 seemed to add fresh subject-matter. Furthermore, the Board noted that the gist of the feature that had been added to the claim seemed to be known from document D2.

Considering the feature added to claim 1 of the second auxiliary request, the Board expressed some doubt whether the skilled person would have inferred this feature from the application as filed. Furthermore, the Board noted that the device of D2 could apparently be configured in the manner claimed.

IV. With a letter dated 12 June 2012 the appellant withdrew their request for oral proceedings and requested that the proceedings continue in writing. The appellant made comments in relation to document D2, arguing that claim 1 of each request was novel and inventive over D2.

V. Oral proceedings were held on 2 August 2012. The appellant did not attend, but had requested in writing that the decision under appeal be set aside and that a patent be granted:

- on the basis of the Main Request filed with the grounds of appeal of 23 October 2008, or

- on the basis of the first auxiliary request (claim 1 filed with letter of 12 June 2012; claims 2 to 44 filed with the grounds of appeal of 23 October 2008), or

- on the basis of the second auxiliary request filed with the grounds of appeal of 23 October 2008.

VI. Claim 1 of the main request reads as follows (feature references added by the Board):

(a) "Programmable logic device circuitry comprising:

(b) a plurality of regions of programmable logic (130);

(c) general purpose interconnection circuitry (140) programmably configurable to allow outputs of substantially any of the regions to be applied to inputs of substantially any of the regions;

(d) function-specific block (“FSB”) circuitry (50);

(e) and characterised in routing circuitry (110, 60, 70) programmably configurable to route outputs of the FSB circuitry to only a subset of the regions,

(f) wherein the routing circuitry is adapted to route FSB outputs for output driving by output driver circuitry (138) of the regions in the subset, and wherein the output driver circuitry of the regions in the subset is adapted to drive signals into the general purpose interconnection circuitry (140)."

Claim 1 of the first auxiliary request comprises all of the features of main request claim 1, with the following additional feature at the end:

(g1) "wherein the programmable logic device circuitry has no separate output drivers that are dedicated to the FSB outputs, the use of the output driver circuitry to drive the signals into the general purpose interconnection circuitry saving having to provide such output drivers that are dedicated to the FSB outputs".

Claim 1 of the second auxiliary request comprises all of the features of main request claim 1, with the following additional feature at the end:

(g2) "wherein the programmable logic of the regions in the subset that receive the FSB outputs may be programmed to not process the FSB output signals prior to driving the resulting signals out via the output driver circuitry of the regions in the subset".

VII. The appellant has argued inter alia that the subject-matter of claim 1 of the main request and of the first and second auxiliary requests is novel with respect to document D2 and involves an inventive step when starting from figure 13 of document D2. Furthermore, the appellant considers that the amendments made according to claim 1 of the first auxiliary request and the second auxiliary request do not add fresh subject-matter.

Reasons for the Decision

1. The appeal is admissible.

2. Main request

2.1 Document D2 discloses various examples of hybrid integrated circuits that have a field programmable gate array (FPGA) portion and an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) portion (see page 1, lines 5 to 18). These circuit portions correspond to a plurality of regions of programmable logic and function-specific block (FSB) circuitry as set out in features (a), (b) and (d) of claim 1 of the main request.

The FPGA portion 14 is made up of an array of logic modules 16 with horizontal and vertical routing resources provided for connecting the logic modules 16 as well as for communication with the ASIC portion 12 (see page 2, line 16 to page 3, line 3).

In the circuits of figures 3, 4, 7 and 9 to 14 the FPGA portion 14 has a multi-level hierarchical design (see page 3, lines 4 to 9). The FPGA portion 14 comprises nine logic blocks 18 having horizontal and vertical routing resources. Each logic block 18 comprises another nine logic blocks 20 having local routing resources. It is stated on page 8, lines numbered 2 to 5 that "the hierarchial (sic) FPGA architecture has various horizontal and vertical interconnect conductors that programmably connect groups of logic resources at each level in the hierarchial design." Thus it is evident that these horizontal, vertical and local routing resources amount to general purpose interconnection circuitry that are programmably configurable to allow outputs of substantially any of the regions of programmable logic to be applied to inputs of substantially any of the regions of programmable logic (feature (c) of claim 1).

Figure 13 of D2 shows a circuit in which an input/output module (IOM) 82 or an interface buffer 84 is placed inside the logic blocks in the FPGA portion. FIG. 14 depicts a design similar to that of FIG. 13, except where each IOM 82 and interface buffer 84 is placed in the bottom row of blocks or clusters in order to reduce the length of the dedicated interface tracks that connect them to the ASIC portion (see paragraph bridging pages 11 and 12).

In both figure 13 and figure 14 dedicated interface tracks connect the IOM 82 and interface buffer 84 to the ASIC portion 12. In the terminology of present claim 1, these dedicated interface tracks correspond to routing circuitry that routes outputs of the FSB circuitry to only a subset of the programmable logic regions, that subset being those regions of the FPGA that have an IOM 82 or interface buffer 84 placed inside them. Furthermore, given that the interface buffers 84 receive and buffer signals that are output from the FSB circuitry, they clearly constitute output driver circuitry of the regions of the subset in the sense of claim 1.

2.2 The appellant has argued (see letter dated 12 June 2012, page 3, sixth paragraph) that the buffers 84 of D2 are not "adapted to drive signals into the general purpose interconnection circuitry" (cf. feature (f) of claim 1). The Board is not convinced by this argument because if, as suggested in the last paragraph on page 11 of D2, the interface buffers 84 are "placed inside the logic blocks in the FPGA portion" as shown in figure 13 or 14, then these buffers would be able to be connected to the horizontal, vertical and local routing resources (i.e. programmably configurable general purpose interconnection circuitry) which connect the groups of logic resources at each level in the hierarchical design.

2.3 As set out above, in D2 the interface buffers 84 are connected to the ASIC portion 12 by dedicated interface tracks. These are not programmably configurable. Hence, the subject-matter of claim 1 of the main request may be considered to differ from the circuits depicted in figure 13 or 14 of document D2 in that the routing circuitry is programmably configurable to route outputs of the FSB circuitry to only a subset of the programmable logic regions (cf. part of feature (e)).

2.4 The appellant has argued (see letter dated 12 June 2012, page 4, second paragraph) that starting from figure 13 of D2 as the closest prior art, the problem addressed by the present invention is how to reduce cost and power consumption. The Board does not share this view. By using routing resources between the function specific block (ASIC portion) and the programmable logic regions (FPGA) that are programmably configurable, the effect achieved is to increase the flexibility of the routing. Hence, the Board sees this as being the objective problem solved by the subject-matter of claim 1 when compared to figure 13 of D2.

2.5 Starting from the circuit of figure 13 of D2 and seeking to increase the flexibility of the routing between the ASIC portion and the FPGA portion, the Board considers that it would be obvious for the skilled person to use a FPGA-ASIC routing channel such as is disclosed in various other embodiments of D2 (see figures 4, 5 and 7 to 10). As set out in the third paragraph on page 9 of D2, an FPGA-ASIC routing channel would facilitate the distribution of the signals between the ASIC portion and the FPGA portion, or in other words would increase the flexibility of the routing. Also as set out in that paragraph, the FPGA-ASIC routing channel may be either hardwired or contain a plurality of programming elements 42. Clearly such programming elements would be programmably configurable to route outputs of the FSB circuitry to only a subset of the programmable logic regions of the FPGA portion, that being their very purpose.

2.6 The Board concludes that in the manner set out above the person skilled in the art would come to the subject-matter of claim 1 of the main request without involving an inventive step, Article 56 EPC.

3. First auxiliary request

3.1 According to feature (g1) of claim 1 of the first auxiliary request, "the programmable logic device circuitry has no separate output drivers that are dedicated to the FSB outputs, the use of the output driver circuitry to drive the signals into the general purpose interconnection circuitry saving having to provide such output drivers that are dedicated to the FSB outputs" (emphasis added).

In the application as filed it is stated that use of the output drivers of the logic elements "saves having to provide separate output drivers that are dedicated to the FSB outputs" (see the published application, EP 1 191 696 A2, paragraph [0050]). This does not seem to necessarily imply that the programmable logic device circuitry has no separate output drivers that are dedicated to the FSB outputs. It might rather imply that there is no need to provide dedicated FSB output drivers that are separate from the programmable logic circuitry. Hence, the Board considers that the wording of feature (g1) might add fresh subject-matter, contrary to Article 123(2) EPC.

3.2 Notwithstanding the above, the Board considers that in the device of figures 13 and 14 of document D2, by configuring a certain number of programmable logic modules of the FPGA as buffers for signals emanating from the ASIC, into the horizontal and vertical routing resources of the FPGA, it is possible to avoid separate interface buffers dedicated for the ASIC signals, such as the separate interface buffers 26 that are used in other embodiments (see figures 4, 7, 9, 10 and 11). Hence, the Board finds that the gist of feature (g1) is known from the circuit in figure 13 or 14 of D2 and that the subject-matter of claim 1 of the first auxiliary request lacks an inventive step for the same reasons as given above for the main request.

3.3 The appellant has argued that the buffers 84 in figures 13 and 14 are functionally dedicated to the ASIC outputs in the sense that they provide no driving for the logic blocks in which they are placed (see page 4 of the letter dated 12 June 2012, third paragraph under the heading arguments in relation to the first auxiliary request). However this does not address the point that these buffers are not separate from the FPGA. Furthermore, when introducing an FPGA-ASIC routing channel to increase flexibility the buffers 84 would no longer be dedicated to particular ASIC outputs and hence, when a given buffer is not needed for driving ASIC outputs, it would be obvious to the person skilled in the art to configure it to buffer signals emanating from within the FPGA.

4. Second auxiliary request

4.1 According to feature (g2) of claim 1 of the second auxiliary request, "the programmable logic of the regions in the subset that receive the FSB outputs may be programmed to not process the FSB output signals prior to driving the resulting signals out via the output driver circuitry of the regions in the subset".

4.2 The Board has some doubts whether the skilled reader would indeed infer this "negative" alternative (may be programmed to not process the FSB output signals) just from the disclosure of the opposite "positive" alternative in paragraphs [0054] and [0055] of the application as filed (may/can also be used to process the FSB output signals).

4.3 Notwithstanding the above, the Board considers that in the device of figures 13 and 14 of document D2, it would be an obvious possibility when programming the FPGA to send a given signal output from the ASIC portion to parts of the FPGA other than the particular logic block in which the buffer that receives the ASIC signal is located. Thus, it would be obvious to configure the logic block containing the buffer so that it does not process the ASIC signal before it is buffered, but passes it on to other logic blocks unprocessed. Hence the Board finds that the subject-matter of claim 1 of auxiliary request 2 is obvious in view of the prior art.

5. Conclusion

As none of the appellant's requests could form a basis for the grant of the patent, the appeal has to be dismissed.

ORDER

For the above reasons it is decided that:

The appeal is dismissed.