Appeal No. 1997-3166
Application No. 08/509,638
of the disclosure. (See Answer, page 3.) Appellants argue that the reference does not disclose the
physical layout of the device, but merely a schematic diagram of the circuitry, and that limitations in
independent Claims 15 and 21 reciting physical placement of the semiconductor elements are thus not
anticipated. (See Brief, pages 4-5.)
“Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses, expressly or under
principles of inherency, each and every element of a claimed invention.” RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital
Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984). We agree with
appellants that the Oldham disclosure does not support a rejection for anticipation of the subject matter
of Claims 15 and 21, respectively. Claim 15 recites, inter alia, that a channel pattern for the first driver
transistor and a channel pattern for the second driver transistor are symmetrical about a point, and that
a channel pattern for the first word transistor and a channel pattern for the second word transistor are
symmetrical about the point. Oldham, however, merely shows transistors in schematic form, without
the interrelated physical arrangement. Figure 5, that pointed out by the examiner, shows driver
transistors (T1, T3) and load transistors (T2, T4), but the disclosure does not detail actual physical
layout of all the elements.
Claim 15 also requires that “a channel pattern for [the] first load element...and a channel pattern
for [the] second load element...are asymmetrical.” The examiner points to column 2, lines 40-46 of
Oldham for material that is believed to read on the limitation. (See Answer, pages 3 and 6.) Column
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