Appeal No. 2000-1938
Application 08/940,467
the zener diodes in the admitted prior art power output stage.
In the absence of some motivation established by the references,
a rejection based on obviousness cannot be sustained. See In re
Kotzab, 217 F.3d 1365, 1370, 55 USPQ2d 1313, 1316 (Fed. Cir.
2000) ("to establish obviousness based on a combination of the
elements disclosed in the prior art, there must be some
motivation, suggestion or teaching of the desirability of making
the specific combination that was made by the applicant. See
In re Dance, 160 F.3d 1339, 1343, 48 USPQ2d 1635, 1637 (Fed. Cir.
1998)."). Furthermore, "deficiencies of the cited references
cannot be remedied by . . . general conclusions about what
is 'basic knowledge' or 'common sense.'" In re Lee, 277 F.3d
1338, 1344, 61 USPQ2d 1430, 1434-35 (Fed. Cir. 2002)(quoting In
re Zurko, 258 F.3d 1379, 1385, 59 USPQ2d 1693, 1697 (Fed. Cir.
2001)).
The rejection of claim 1 is therefore reversed.
E. The rejection of claims 2 and 4
Cooper's Figure 4 shows a crowbar circuit for quickly
discharging the high voltage present on the anode of a CRT
display 26 (col. 1, 11. 32-36). The examiner characterizes
Figure 4 as teaching the use of a resistor in parallel with a
zener diode "for the purpose of . . . changing the amount of
allowable charge build-up at the high node which needs to be
discharged (via the use of a bleed-resistor path, see Cooper et
al)" (Answer at 4) and also "for the purpose of controlling the
breakover rate of discharge current when the zener voltage is
exceeded." Answer at 6. Neither of these characterizations
accurately describe the combination of zener diode ZG and
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