Appeal No. 1998-2934
Application No. 08/290,275
Reference is made to the brief and answer for the respective positions of appellant
and the examiner.
OPINION
We will reverse the rejection of claims 1-4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 because, in our
view, from the evidence of record, it does not appear that the examiner has established a
prima facie case of obviousness with regard to the instant claims subject matter.
It is the examiner’s view that APA discloses the subject matter of independent
claims 1 and 3 but for the recited materials being “taken from the group of III-V
semiconductors which contain nitrogen and lattice match silicon.” Brown does disclose
such materials. This much is undisputed by appellant.
The examiner reasons that it would have been obvious “to utilize other known
semiconductor materials, such as group III-V nitride alloys for the known group III-V
resonant tunneling diode of [APA] as suggested by Brown...since it was well known that the
tunneling layer is made of narrow energy bandgap material and the quantum well is made
of wide energy bandgap material” [answer-page 5].
In response to appellant’s argument [brief-page 3] that Brown has no suggestion
that the same materials could be used for the tunneling barriers of a resonant tunneling
3
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