Ex parte DOYLE et al. - Page 5




              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,                                           






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