Appeal No. 1997-3956
Application 08/583,960
elements and outputting voltages at boundaries of said small-
level regions as lower comparison voltages;
switching means for selectively connecting the lower
comparison voltage generating means in parallel to the
determined middle-level region by the middle determining
means;
a plurality of lower comparators comparing said analog
input voltage with said lower comparison voltages; and
lower determining means for determining, from output
signals of said lower comparators, to which one of said small-
level regions said analog input voltage belongs, wherein said
determining means further incudes a converting means for
outputting a predetermined lower digital code in accordance
with said determined small-level region, wherein [sic;]
said third voltage-dividing elements including one of a
capacitor string comprising a plurality of series-connected
capacitors and a resistor string comprising a plurality of
series-connected resistors, each resistor of the resistor
string having a high resistance sufficient to avoid
influencing the determined regions of the second voltage-
dividing elements.
The Examiner relies on the following references:
Yamada et al. (Yamada) 4,542,370 Sept. 17, 1985
Tsuji et al. (Tsuji) 4,893,124 Jan. 9, 1990
Yahagi et al. (Yahagi) 5,247,301 Sept. 21, 1993
Claim 6 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Tsuji in view of Yamada. In addition, claim
6 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Yahagi in view of Yamada.
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