Appeal No. 96-2614
Application 08/098,740
RC circuit. But in all of the appellant’s claims, it is
required that the resistance or conductance provided by two
field effect transistors be used to enhance or multiply the
capacitance otherwise provided by a capacitor. That is the
key idea.
Capacitor multiplier circuits have been known. The
appellant’s Figure 1 illustrates the acknowledged prior art
circuits of this kind. As is evident in a comparison of
Figure 1 with appellant’s claims, see for example claim 5, the
prior art circuit makes use of two resistors R1 and R2,
whereas the appellant’s claims recite not first and second
resistors but two field effect transistors with suitable
biasing.
At page 4 of the answer, the examiner stated: “Note that
although reference Carroll is used in this rejection to show
that a transistor can be used as a resistor, the fact that a
transistor can be used as a resistor is notoriously well known
in the art . . . .” According to the examiner, “it is
fundamentally basic and notoriously well known in the art that
a transistor can function as a variable resistor by varying
the biasing voltage, and that a transistor can function as a
5
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