Appeal No. 96-4103
Application 08/363,479
with the burden of presenting a prima facie case of
obviousness. Note In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24
USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
With respect to independent claims 1 and 5, the
examiner notes that Yokoyama teaches an emitter structure for
a bipolar transistor in which the emitter layer is made of
Al Ga As. The examiner observes that the only difference
0.5 0.5
between Yokoyama and claims 1 and 5 is that the claims recite
that x>0.5 whereas x=0.5 in Yokoyama [answer, page 4]. The
examiner concludes that the x in Yokoyama could obviously be
approximately 0.5 so that it would have been obvious to have a
value slightly larger than the disclosed value of 0.5.
Appellants respond that there is no overlap between
Yokoyama’s x=0.5 and the claimed x>0.5, and there is no
suggestion in Yokoyama to use any x other than x=0.5 as used
therein. Appellants also point out that their larger mole
fraction of aluminum solves disclosed problems of emitter
collapse and negative differential resistance (NDR) which are
problems totally unrecognized by Yokoyama. Absent the
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