Appeal No. 1998-0441
Application 08/713,089
has failed to establish a prima facie case of anticipation.
Independent claims 2, 7, and 12 all contain the limitation
of a constant voltage source connected to an external power
source so as to receive an external power source voltage and
output a constant voltage to a ring oscillator. The
anticipation rejection of claims 2, 7, and 12, and their
dependent claims 3, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, and 16 is reversed.
Appellants further argue (RBr6): "[T]he Examiner's
analysis ... is based only upon analysis of the device at
isolated, limited duration periods of time at which the
delay time of the first variable delay circuit 3 is set
equal to T/2. At these isolated time periods, PV is
constant while at all other time PV varies continuously
while the PLL is hunting for a desired frequency."
The Examiner does not respond to this argument.
Nevertheless, if Motegi taught that PV was a constant
voltage regardless of the external power source voltage when
the PLL is stable, then we do not think it would matter to
meeting the claims that PV varies when the PLL is not
stable. However, as noted above, the Examiner has not
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