Appeal No. 96-4003
Application 08/288,131
persuasive in overcoming the Examiners’s established prima facie case of anticipation. A claim
containing a recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be
employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus if the prior art
apparatus teaches all the limitations of the claim. Ex parte Masham, 2 USPQ2d 1647 (Bd. Pat. App.
& Inter. 1987). In any case, a review of the language of independent claims 1 and 11 reveals that no
ultimate intended purpose or use of the bias generating circuit is ever recited. To the contrary, the
claimed invention is directed to a circuit and method for generating a bias for a semiconductor device
which is precisely the purpose of the circuit of Tobita.
For at least all of the reasons discussed above, the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection of
independent claims 1 and 11 is sustained. Further, since the dependent claims stand or fall with their
respective base claims, the 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection of dependent claims 2-6, 12-16, 21, and 23
is sustained as well.
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007