Appeal No. 1998-0916
Application 08/331,435
power supply and a passive overshoot circuit establishes the
asymmetrical operation which the examiner argues is lacking in
claims 1 and 10. Although claim 1 would read more clearly if
the word “coupled” had not been deleted from amended claim 1,
we agree with appellant that the word “directly” in claims 1
and 10 cannot be met by an additional element included between
the two named components. Thus, appellant is correct that
neither switch 101 nor 102 of Uenishi is directly (coupled)
between a first power supply and the output because inductance
element 108 interrupts the direct connection. Therefore, a
feature of claims 1 and 10 is not disclosed by Uenishi, and
the anticipation rejection is not sustained.
Jacobson suffers the same problem as Uenishi. That
is, inductor 18 in Jacobson precludes either of switches 14 or
16 from being directly between a first power supply and the
output as recited in claims 1 and 10. Therefore, we also do
not sustain the rejection based on Jacobson.
Although Kayser teaches each of switches 44 and 47 as
being directly between a power supply input and the output,
Kayser fails to disclose a passive overshoot circuit connected
as recited in claims 1 and 10. The examiner’s response that
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