Appeal No. 1997-1034
Application No. 08/279,135
1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992). On appeal to the Board, an applicant can overcome a rejection by
showing insufficient evidence of prima facie obviousness or by rebutting the prima facie
case with evidence of secondary indicia of nonobviousness.” In re Rouffet, 149 F.3d
1350, 1355, 47 USPQ2d 1453, 1455 (CAFC 1998). Here, we find that appellant has
overcome the prima facie case of obviousness by showing insufficient evidence by the
Examiner of obviousness.
We find that the Examiner has not made a clear showing of a prima facie case of
obviousness. Furthermore, the Examiner has not clearly addressed the limitations set forth
in claims 1 and 15. The Examiner has applied Mijayi/Ichinose and Klein against the claims
and discussed these references with respect to lowering the “threshold voltage” and
adjustments by doping to adjust the threshold voltage. But the Examiner has not
addressed the language of claims 1 and 15 concerning the “conductivity” of the gate of the
pass gate transistors being lower than the first predetermined conductivity of the pull-down
transistors.
Appellant argues that the Examiner has not shown that the “additional ion
implantation” as taught by Miyaji is directed to the gate of the access transistor as
recited in claim 1. Rather, appellant maintains that this discussion in Miyaji “likely refers to
the threshold adjust implant[ation] into a transistor channel region performed prior to gate
formation.” (See brief at page 3.) We agree with an appellant that the
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