Appeal No. 95-0675
Application No. 08/070,487
permanently altered. The method includes forming first and
second PN junctions in a shallow tank of conductivity opposite
that of the semiconductor body, "and irradiating exclusively a
programming area within one and only one of said PN junctions
with a laser beam."
Appealed claims 20 and 23-31 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being clearly anticipated by Japanese
'654 (equivalent to U.S. '729) and under 35 U.S.C. § 102(c)
and (g) as being anticipated by U.S. Application 07/233,184,
now abandoned. Claims 20 and 23-31 also stand rejected under2
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Aswell in view of
the admitted prior art.
Upon careful consideration of the opposing arguments
presented on appeal, we will not sustain the examiner's
rejections. Our reasoning follows.
We consider first the rejection of the appealed claims
under § 102 over U.S. '729. The examiner relies upon Figures
4 and 5 of the reference for depiction of laser irradiating
2Since there is general agreement between the examiner
and appellants that Japanese '654, U.S. '729 and the abandoned
application provide identical disclosures, we will limit our
discussion to U.S. '729.
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