Appeal No. 1998-0824
Application No. 08/621,767
modifying the circuit of Figure 6. See page 5 of the Reply
Brief. Appellants argue that Takahashi must be viewed for
what the patent teaches as a whole and not what portions of
Takahashi that the Examiner can selectively choose from the
patent to somehow construct Appellants' claimed invention.
Appellants point out that Takahashi is a power-on-set circuit
and has nothing to do with Appellants' invention of a low-side
driver circuit. Appellants submit that there is no proper
motivation to combine the circuit of Appellants' Figure 6 with
Takahashi in any manner. See Reply Brief, pages 6 and 7.
The Examiner admits that Takahashi discloses a power-on
reset circuit and nothing to do with power transistors. See
page 3 of the Supplemental Examiner's Answer. The Examiner
further argues that Appellants have admitted that the problem
of unnecessary current consumption of the prior art Figure 6
circuit was known. The Examiner points us to page 5, lines 18
through 24, for this submission.
The Federal Circuit state that "[t]he mere fact that the
prior art may be modified in the manner suggested by the
Examiner does not make the modification obvious unless the
prior art suggested the desirability of the modification." In
6
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