Appeal No. 97-3451
Application 08/325,832
relied on Garuts. On page 3 of the examiner’s answer, it is
stated:
Garuts teaches the "thermometer code" flash A/D
capability for A/D conversion for the purpose of
minimizing cross talk among circuit signals. It would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
at the time the invention was made to modify the system
of Cheung et al. to be able to use the teaching of
Garuts of the "thermometer code" A/D conversion
capability in order to minimize cross talk.
The examiner’s position is off the mark. The appellant’s
invention is not simply a flash A/D converter which first
converts the input to a thermometer code and then generates a
corresponding digital output. The invention at issue requires
applying the intermediate thermometer code to a data channel
decoder/logic circuit and also to a servo signal decoder/logic
circuit. The examiner has pointed to nothing in Garuts which
could reasonably have suggested sending the thermometer code
itself to a data channel decoder/logic circuit or a servo signal
decoder/logic circuit. On pages 7-8 of the appeal brief, the
appellant correctly argues that "[w]ithout the guidance of the
invention in terms of making use of the thermometer code output,
one examining Garuts for application to Cheung would simply use
Garuts before forming the conventional binary weighted sums and
performing demodulation per Cheung." In other words, Garuts
discloses a flash A/D converter, and one with ordinary skill in
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