Appeal No. 97-4425
Application 08/619,418
conductive element to the sense amplifiers. The language of the
claim is sufficiently broad to cover directly connecting the
sense line to the sense amplifiers and indirectly connecting the
conductive element to the sense amplifiers through the sense
line. The claim requires only that both the sense line and the
conductive element be connected to the first and second nodes.
The appellants argue (Reply at 2, lines 18-19) that the
examiner has provided no explanation as to how the conductive
element is connected to the first and second nodes. However, the
examiner clearly indicated that the first node is the node at the
intersection of L1 and L32 and that the second node is also the
node at the intersection of L1 and L32 (answer at 5, lines 7-8
and lines 13-14). Figure 8B of Kohno clearly illustrates that
the conductive line element L32 is connected to that common node.
The appellants have not argued that the first and second
nodes cannot be a common node. In any event, in light of this
specification, we agree with the examiner that the claim can
reasonably be interpreted such that the first and second nodes
can be a common node. Note first and second nodes S1 and S3 in
Figure 1 of the appellants’ specification, which are essentially
the same node by being directly connected to each other.
For the foregoing reasons, we sustain the rejection of claim
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007