Appeal No. 2002-0397
Application 08/925,968
Claims 1, 8, 13, 15, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Nelson. Townley, Carroll,
and Ohmi are cited to show the equivalence of a discrete resistor
and a continuously-biased FET. Storino and Ciraula are cited to
show that a half-latch was well known in the art.
In response to appellant's original appeal brief (Paper
No. 30, January 16, 2001) (pages referred to as "Br__"), the
examiner reopened prosecution to purportedly set forth a new
ground of rejection (Paper No. 31, February 28, 2001). However,
the rejection over Nelson was the same; the rejection referred to
Carroll, Townley, Ohmi, Ciraula, and Storino (Paper No. 31,
page 4), but did not incorporate them into the rejection.
Appellant filed a supplemental appeal brief (Paper No. 32,
received May 31, 2001) asserting that the rejection was improper
because it contained no new ground of rejection and incorporated
by reference the original appeal brief. The examiner entered an
examiner's answer (Paper No. 33, August 16, 2001) (pages referred
to as "EA__") and appellant filed a reply brief (Paper No. 34,
October 22, 2001) (pages referred to as "RBr__").
OPINION
Claim 1 is selected as the representative claim.
The examiner finds that "Nelson discloses an RC attenuator,
which is essentially all that appellant is reciting in this
claim" (EA3). The examiner finds that the difference between
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Last modified: November 3, 2007