Appeal No. 1998-3035
Application No. 08/580,036
obviousness rejection (Answer, page 5), the Examiner asserts
the obviousness to the skilled artisan of adjusting the
frequency of the clock signals in either Yoshizawa or Nagasaki
to thereby arrive at the claimed particular relative skew
value of the generated complementary clock signals.
In response, Appellants attack (Brief, page 8) the
Examiner’s assertions as to the interrelationship of skew and
clock frequency. In Appellants’ view, frequency and skew are
different parameters and that, merely because a clock
frequency can be altered, Appellants’ specific claimed
relative skew value would not necessarily follow. We agree.
Although the Examiner suggests that any skilled artisan would
recognize that a skew problem could be corrected by increasing
the input clock signal frequency, such a suggestion is
completely devoid of any support on the record. We are not
inclined to dispense with proof by evidence when the
proposition at issue is not supported by a teaching in a prior
art reference, common knowledge or capable of unquestionable
demonstration. Precedent of our reviewing court requires this
evidence in order to establish a prima facie case. In re
Knapp-Monarch Co., 296 F.2d 230, 232, 132 USPQ 6, 8 (CCPA
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007