Appeal No. 1997-2247 Page 6
Application No. 08/259,798
signal for simultaneously applying the supply voltage to all
of the wordlines of the array." Accordingly, the limitations
require simultaneously applying a supply voltage to all the
word lines of a storage array.
The examiner fails to show a suggestion of the
limitations in the prior art. He admits, "Hardee does not
show the voltage is simultaneously applied to all of the word
lines." (Examiner's Answer at 3.) For its part, the
reference teaches sequentially applying a voltage to each word
line of a storage array. Specifically, "at least one period
of the sawtooth voltage waveform applied to pad 20 is applied
to each word line in memory array 40. This may be effectuated
by sequentially addressing the word lines of array 20 through
the operation of row address buffers 46 and row decoders 48."
Col. 5, ll. 49-54. Faced with this omission, the examiner
opines, "[i]t would have been obvious ... to realize that the
voltage can also be simultaneously being [sic] applied to each
of Hardee's word lines. Such realization is well-known in the
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007