Appeal No. 1999-0886
Application No. 08/722,738
device does include a charge storing capacitor coupled to the gate electrode adapted to
store charge produced in the channel region in response to a logic state programming
voltage applied between one of the source and drain regions and the gate electrode.
Appellants further note that the Momi abstract and Figures suggest a transistor
configured to “stop soft leak,” or to suppress the generation of carriers in the channel
region which get transferred through the gate oxide to the gate conductor. Accordingly,
contend appellants, the skilled artisan would not use a carrier suppression transistor, as
taught by Momi, in the device of appellants’ claimed invention which relies on the
generation of channel carriers which get transferred to the capacitor in order to program
the device [reply brief-page 2].
The examiner’s response [answer-page 4] is merely to state that “[i]f the claimed
invention and the structurally similar prior art species share a useful property, that will
generally be sufficient to motivate an artisan of ordinary skill to make the claimed species.”
However, the examiner fails to elucidate as to what he means by this. Moreover, the
examiner contends that it is “well known” to “adapt ferroelectric capacitors to store charge
in semiconductor memories since such materials can store 100 times the charge of a
typical dielectric...of the same thickness” and that, therefore,
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