Appeal No. 1998-0692
Application No. 08/693,551
delay’ being chosen to be slightly above the propagation delay
of the ‘first portion’ when it receives the ‘first voltage’”
[sic] [answer-page 3].
An examiner’s charge of “inherency” may be challenged by
an appellant and, indeed, appellant in this case has
challenged the examiner to show that elements receiving a
higher voltage must operate above a maximum propagation delay.
At pages 6-7 of the principal brief, appellant contends that
this is not inherent, pointing out that “alternatives do
exist” since the application of a lower voltage to a device
operating between 5 volts and ground does not necessarily
indicate that it will have a longer propagation delay than a
similar device which operates between 3.4 volts and ground.
We agree with appellant that there is simply no teaching
in Gregor that the signal paths which are operated at the
higher voltage do not operate below a maximum propagation
delay required to maintain the operating frequency of the
component when operated at the lower voltage. The examiner’s
response is to state [answer-page 4] that “all that would be
required is for the reference to have one scenario (i.e., one
arbitrary ‘maximum propagation delay’) wherein the
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