Appeal No. 1998-2116
Application 08/665,760
turning a differential amplifier on and off in response to the
beginning and end, respectively, of a pulse. Because every
element of the claimed invention is taught in Laug and/or
Grundmann, the Examiner concludes that the invention would
have been obvious in view of the two references.
As pointed out by our reviewing court, we must first
determine the scope of the claim. "[T]he name of the game is
the claim." In re Hiniker Co., 150 F.3d 1362, 1369, 47 USPQ2d
1523, 1529 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
Appellants’ claim 48 recites a method for reducing
power consumption in a pulsed latch receiver, comprising
generating a first pulse using logic circuitry in response to
a rising edge of a bus clock signal, turning on a differential
amplifier in response to the beginning of the first pulse,
comparing an I/O line voltage to a reference voltage to
generate an output signal from the differential amplifier, and
turning off the differential amplifier in response to the end
of the first pulse.
We agree with the Examiner that Laug teaches a
differential amplifier (column 5, lines 39-45) that compares
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