Appeal No. 96-2950
Application 08/145,710
current increasing rate control means formed in said
substrate and responsive to a potential at said
predetermined node for controlling an increasing rate
of the output current by said current providing means,
wherein . . . said current increasing rate control
means comprises conductance increasing timing control
means responsive to the potential at said predetermined
node for controlling an increasing rate of a
conductance of said first field effect transistor, and
said current increasing rate control means controlling
the output driver circuit to operate in at least a
first state and a second state, said current providing
means provides a first current increasing rate in the
first state and said current providing means provides a
second current increasing rate in the second state,
said second current increasing rate being slower than
said first current increasing rate
as recited in Appellants’ claim 1. Furthermore, we note that
claims 2 through 4 and 9 through 11 are dependent on claim 1 and
thereby recite the above limitation. Therefore, we find that
Davis fails to teach all of the limitations of claims 1 through 4
and 9 through 11, and thereby the claims are not anticipated by
Davis.
On pages 5 and 6 of the answer, the Examiner argues that
Kohda teaches a current increasing rate control means shown as
element 6 in Figure 1. On page 8 of the answer, the Examiner
responds to the Appellants’ argument by stating that the
limitation of having different current increasing rates is
interpreted broadly to mean that the circuit has different
current flows.
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