Appeal No. 95-3876 Application 08/222,009 voltage at the gate in response to a flash terminating signal" is broad enough to describe the operation of Iwata's control voltage generation circuit 18, which responds to a flash terminating signal (i.e., the falling edge of the output signal of NAND gate 28) by turning off transistors 22 and 23, thereby disconnecting the voltage divider resistors 24 and 25 from the constant voltage generating circuit 17 and permitting the current stored in the inherent capacitance of the IGBT gate to discharge to ground through resistor 25, reducing the gate voltage to zero. Because Iwata's control voltage generation circuit 18 performs the function required of the claimed control means, and because appellants have not made a § 112, ¶ 6 argument with respect to this limitation, I would affirm the rejection of claim 14 as unpatentable for obviousness over Iwata in view of Hayashi. Claim 8 depends on claim 14 and additionally recites a voltage doubler for applying to the flash firing unit a voltage of a value approximately twice the voltage of the main capacitor. The examiner argues (Answer at 4-5) that this limitation reads on Iwata's DC-DC converter 10, which includes an oscillation - 18 -Page: Previous 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007