Appeal No. 2000-0142 Page 21
Application No. 08/705,569
whole would have suggested combining the teachings of the
references. Therefore, we affirm the rejection of claims 21
and 22 as obvious over De La Plaza in view of Seki. We
proceed to the last obviousness rejection.
IV. Obviousness Rejection over AAPA and De La Plaza
Rather than reiterate the arguments of the examiner of
appellants in toto, we address the main point of contention
therebetween. The examiner asserts, "[t]he skilled artisan
would be motivated to replace the voltage-current inverter of
the admitted prior art with the stabilized current generating
circuit of De La Plaza for the purpose of providing for the
ballast circuit a stable output current having a filtering
time constant which is easily determined." (Examiner's Answer
at 7.) The appellants argue, "[t]here is therefore clearly no
apparent reason . . . for any person skilled in the art to
modify the admitted prior art by replacing the voltage/current
converter present therein with the stabilized current
generator of De La Plaza et al." (Appeal Br. at 10.)
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