Appeal No. 1999-1634
Application 08/729,399
Rather than repeat the positions of the appellant and the examiner, reference is
made to the briefs and the answer for the respective details thereof.
OPINION
After conducting a detailed study of the disclosed and claimed invention, as well as
the teachings and suggestions of the applied prior art, taken with the positions of the
appellant and the examiner in the respective briefs and answer, we conclude that the
rejection of claims 1, 7, and 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 102 cannot be sustained and, in turn, the
rejection of the respective dependent claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103 cannot be sustained.
The claimed resistor ladder circuit in each of independent claims 1, 7 and 9 on
appeal recites that it has "a predetermined number of taps for outputting a corresponding
number of different divided voltages obtained from a voltage generated by said reference
voltage generator." In applying Figure 2 of McClure, the examiner takes the view that the
language "a predetermined number of taps" clearly is met by the Figure 2 of McClure by its
showing of a single predetermined tap at the node between resistors 21 and 23, the tap
feeding the base of transistor 28. The examiner takes the further view that nothing
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