Appeal No. 1997-3161
Application No. 08/450,553
As correctly pointed out by Appellant at pages 18 and 19
of the Brief, Anderson, while suggesting the appliance of a
negative potential to a transistor source region to aid in the
flow of electrons to a floating gate, never establishes the
relationship of this negative potential to the power supply or
ground voltages. Given this deficiency, we fail to see how
the skilled artisan would find any suggestion or motivation in
Anderson to modify Haddad in the manner proposed by the
Examiner. In our view, even assuming, arguendo, that Haddad
and Anderson could be combined, the resulting combination
would not have suggested to one of ordinary skill the
invention set forth in independent claims 43 and 51 which
requires a particular relationship of voltages applied to the
control gate and to the source or drain relative to the supply
and ground voltages.
In summary, we are left to speculate why one of ordinary
skill would have found it obvious to modify the applied prior
art to make the combination suggested by the Examiner. The
only reason we can discern is improper hindsight
reconstruction of Appellant’s claimed invention. In order for
us to sustain the Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103,
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