Appeal No. 2000-0452
Application No. 08/622,389
oscillation frequency of said oscillation circuit corresponds
with the frequency of said reference clock signal.” The examiner
responds (answer at pages 11 and 12) that “[i]t is notoriously
well known in the art that a reference clock can be generated by
a voltage controlled oscillator to provide a stable clock signal.
. . . Thus, it would have been obvious . . . to generate the
reference clock (a) of Nakajima with a voltage controlled
oscillator to provide a stable clock signal to minimize any
jitter in the signal, thereby having the reference clock signal
frequency determined by an input of the voltage controlled
oscillator.” We find that, while it may be notoriously well
known to change the frequency of an oscillator by using a
reference clock signal, the examiner’s response does not address
the interaction of the control circuit with the oscillation
circuit in the manner recited in the above quoted limitation.
Therefore, we are of the view that the examiner has not made a
prima facie case of obviousness in rejecting claim 8.
Having found the rejections of all of the independent claims
1, 3, 8 and 14 as untenable, we also do not sustain the rejection
of dependent claims 4 through 7, 9 through 13, 15 through 18 and
22 over Nakajima in view of Tomisawa or Kamisaka, and Chen.
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007