Appeal No. 95-4788
Application 07/996,393
motivation in the references to do so. See In re Mills, 916 F.2d 680, 682, 16 USPQ2d 1430, 1432
(Fed. Cir. 1990) ("While Mathis' apparatus may be capable of being modified to run the way Mills'
apparatus is claimed, there must be a suggestion or motivation in the reference to do so.");
In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902, 221 USPQ 1125, 1127 (Fed. Cir. 1984) ("The mere fact that
the prior art could be so modified would not have made the modification obvious unless the prior
art suggested the desirability of the modification.'). We see no such suggestion in the admitted
prior art or Howard.
The fact that Howard discloses structure producing two voltage levels does not suggest
using different voltage levels for sweeping and for transferring. The two voltage levels in Howard
are used to compensate for crosstalk in a TFT/LCD, not to reduce power and heat in a solid state
charge coupled device (CCD). We fail to see the motivation for using the two voltage levels in
Howard for a completely different purpose in the admitted prior art. The examiner attempts to
show that CCDs are analogous to TFT/LCDs because both use capacitive cells arranged in an x-y
matrix (Examiner's Answer, pages 8-10 and 14). Assuming there are analogies that can be drawn,
we do not see how Howard's technique of applying the data signal (one voltage) to one of the data
lines when the gating signal is applied and applying the crosstalk compensation signal (the second
voltage) when the gating signal is not applied suggests the claimed operation of applying one
voltage during a sequence of sweeping clock pulses and applying another voltage during a
sequence of transferring clock pulses. Howard does not involve sweeping away residual charges.
We agree with appellant's argument that "[t]here is no teaching in Howard of a control means for
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