Appeal No. 1995-5010
Application 08/116,261
Rejection of claim 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
Claim 12 is rejected as being obvious over Takahashi and3
Sakurai’532. The Examiner states:
Takahashi et al. lacks a limiter component
distinct from and in series with the amplitude
detector 51a. However, such a feature is well
known, as seen in Figure 9 (element 69) of Sakurai,
and would have been obvious in order to provide
smoothness and stability to the feedback signals.
Furthermore, to incorporate the Takahashi et al.
circuitry into an ultrasonic surgical hand piece
would have been obvious because the inherent
advantages are applicable to piezoelectric
transducers in general [final rejection, page 4].
Appellant first argues that the Examiner has combined
non- analogous references of Takahashi and Sakurai to reject
claim 12 [brief, page 13]. However, we believe that the
ultrasonic motor of Takahashi is of the same type as disclosed
by Appellant, and Sakurai discloses a control circuit for an
ultrasonic motor. Therefore, we disagree with Appellant’s
conclusory statement that Takahashi and Sakurai are from non-
3We note that claim 12 is not clear. For example, the
clause “a second control loop” (claim 12, line 9) is not
defined. We take it to mean that it refers to the “automatic
gain control loop” mentioned in lines 5 and 6 of claim 12.
Also, the clause “second output signal” (claim 12, line 11) is
undefined. We interpret it to mean any kind of output. Our
discussion is based on this interpretation of the claim.
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