Appeal No. 95-4799
Application 07/996,516
rejection of claims 11 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. 102(b) in view of
Ishibashi.
With regard to Irwin, the examiner points to the
circuit layout of Irwin's Figure 1 for support of an anticipation
rejection against claims 11 and 12. While it is clear that Irwin
is directed to a detector comprising four series-connected tunnel
junctions [see the left-hand column of the top page of the
reference], it is not apparent to us that Irwin is directed to
"superconducting" tunnel junctions, as claimed, although
appellants do not appear to argue this point.
More importantly, in our view, is the specifically
recited relationship, in independent claims 11 and 16, between
the number of tunnel junctions, N, and values A, B, C and D,
where A=3 and the other values depend on total area of the N
superconducting tunnel junctions and capacitance per unit area of
the N superconducting tunnel junctions. Claims 11 and 16 set
forth a specific relationship between these values and, in our
view, the examiner has never adequately addressed these claim
limitations.
The examiner comes to grips with these relational claim
limitations, at pages 10-11 of the answer, by curtly dismissing
the claimed expressions as defining an integer greater than 3 and
-5-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007