Appeal No. 96-3442
Application No. 08/253,884
combination if one of ordinary skill were not motivated to
make the combination in the first instance.
With respect to claims 10 and 11, the Examiner (Answer,
page 4) has referenced portions of Shin involving activation
and deactivation voltages in relation to the claimed method
steps. However, all limitations in a claim must be considered
for prior art purposes. The recited bootstrap circuity
structure including the connection of the bipolar transistor
to the bootstrap node affects the method steps in a
manipulative sense and must be given weight. For the reasons
previously discussed, the Examiner has not made a prima facie
case of obviousness.
2. The rejection of claims 2, 3, 5, and 6 as being
unpatentable over the prior art as illustrated in Fig. 1 of
the present application in view of Shin and further in view of
Sobue.
Claims 2 and 3 depend from independent claim 1 and claims
5 and 6 depend from independent claim 4 and incorporate all
the limitations of claims 1 and 4 just discussed. Sobue was
cited to meet the base clamping feature of the bootstrap
circuit, but does not overcome the innate deficiency of the
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