Appeal No. 1999-0886 Application No. 08/722,738 device does include a charge storing capacitor coupled to the gate electrode adapted to store charge produced in the channel region in response to a logic state programming voltage applied between one of the source and drain regions and the gate electrode. Appellants further note that the Momi abstract and Figures suggest a transistor configured to “stop soft leak,” or to suppress the generation of carriers in the channel region which get transferred through the gate oxide to the gate conductor. Accordingly, contend appellants, the skilled artisan would not use a carrier suppression transistor, as taught by Momi, in the device of appellants’ claimed invention which relies on the generation of channel carriers which get transferred to the capacitor in order to program the device [reply brief-page 2]. The examiner’s response [answer-page 4] is merely to state that “[i]f the claimed invention and the structurally similar prior art species share a useful property, that will generally be sufficient to motivate an artisan of ordinary skill to make the claimed species.” However, the examiner fails to elucidate as to what he means by this. Moreover, the examiner contends that it is “well known” to “adapt ferroelectric capacitors to store charge in semiconductor memories since such materials can store 100 times the charge of a typical dielectric...of the same thickness” and that, therefore, 5Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007