Appeal No. 2003-1208
Application 09/590,805
of said second device is connected to power.” The claim, which
was inconsistent with claim 1 which required that the third lead
of each device was electrically connected to ground, was changed
to its present form in the amendment filed February 12, 2002
(paper, no. 7, page 2). The wording of original claim 6 is the
same as that of the description of the relevant embodiment in the
appellants’ specification (page 5, lines 23-25).
The appellants’ original disclosure does not disclose an
integrated circuit in which the second and third leads of the
first device are connected to ground and the first leads of the
first and second devices are connected to power. The original
disclosure, therefore, indicates that the integrated circuit
claimed in the present claim 6 is not subject matter which the
appellants regard as their invention. Consequently, we do not
reach the issue of whether this subject matter would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Accordingly, we procedurally reverse the obviousness
rejection of claim 6. We emphasize that this is not a reversal
on the merits.
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