Appeal No. 1998-1815 Page 13
Application No. 08/684,328
The prior art belies the examiner's allegation that
elements 21a, 21b, 24a, and 24b of Young form a sense
amplifier latch while elements 25, 27, and 28 of the reference
form a local column read amplifier. (Final Rejection at 2.)
“‘Every patent application and reference relies to some extent
upon knowledge of persons skilled in the art to complement
that [which is] disclosed ....’” In re Bode, 550 F.2d 656,
660, 193 USPQ 12, 16 (CCPA 1977) (quoting In re Wiggins, 488
F.2d 538, 543, 179 USPQ 421, 424 (CCPA 1973)). Those persons
“must be presumed to know something” about the art “apart from
what the references disclose.” In re Jacoby, 309 F.2d 513,
516, 135 USPQ 317, 319 (CCPA 1962).
Here, U.S. Patent 5,265,047 (Leung) (copy attached),
which the examiner "made of record" in the '312 Application,
(Paper No. 16 at 5.), evidences that in memory circuits
comprising memory cells and a sense amplifier, word lines are
used by the memory cells rather than the sense amplifier.
Specifically, "two separate word lines (WL and WLC) are used
in each memory cell." Col. 3, ll. 54-54. Figure 3 of the
reference specifically shows that the word lines WL and WLC
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