Appeal No. 1997-1644 Page 11
Application No. 08/367,681
Here, the appellant admits, “The Boomer reference is
directed to control of slew rates of output drivers. Boomer
provides an output driver which can be programmed ... to give
faster or slower slew rates for the output drivers.” (Appeal
Br. at 5.) The reference teaches, moreover, that its
invention “is particularly intended for high speed switching,
high drive digital output buffer circuits.” Boomer, col. 2,
ll. 44-46 (emphasis added). The teaching of plural “digital
output buffer circuits,” Id. at l. 46, would have suggested
the application of Boomer’s programmable slew rates to a
plurality of output circuits. This suggestion would have
motivated one of ordinary skill in the art to equip each of
APA’s output drivers with Boomer’s programmable slew rate.
Workers in the art, moreover, would have known that when
Boomer was applied to the plurality of output circuits, the
slew rates of the output circuits would have been adjusted
individually and differently to achieve uniform outputs from
the output circuits. This knowledge would have suggested
programming the slew rates of APA’s output drivers such that
the slew rate of at least one output driver is different than
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