Appeal No. 1998-1750
Application No. 08/579,490
no reason, within the four corners of Douglas, for inserting a series-pass transistor before
the inverter and connecting the drain to the drain terminal of the PMOS transistor and
having a gate terminal always connected to a supply voltage VCC, as claimed.
The examiner’s apparent reliance on U.S. Patent 4,862,019 to Ashmore, Jr. for a
showing of a series-pass NMOS transistor has not been considered since Ashmore, Jr.
forms no part of the statement of the rejection and there would appear to be no excuse for
not positively including the reference in the statement of the rejection if it is being relied
upon to support the rejection. In re Hoch, 428 F.2d 1341, 1342 n.3, 166 USPQ 406, 407
n.3 (CCPA 1970). We would further note that the mere showing of a series-pass NMOS
transistor being well-known does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that it would have
been obvious to place such a transistor in the Douglas circuit in the manner claimed.
Since we will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claim 1, or its dependent
claims 2 and 3, under 35 U.S.C. § 103 because of a failure to provide a prima facie case
of obviousness, we also will not sustain the rejection of claim 4 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 over Douglas in view of Mahabadi since Mahabadi does not provide for the
deficiencies of Douglas regarding the claimed series-pass NMOS transistor. Mahabadi
was merely cited by the examiner for its showing of a Schmitt trigger circuit.
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007