Appeal No. 2001-0740
Application 09/054,415
error in the examiner's reading of claim 10 onto Mizuide. The
rejection of claim 10 is therefore sustained.
Claim 12
The examiner finds that activation of mirror 61 acts to
steer current supplied by a current source (FR9).
Appellants argue that Mizuide does not show "steering
current from a current source away from one part of a current
mirror to cause said current mirror to switch from one state to a
second state" as recited in claim 12 (Br12).
The examiner responds that, taking current mirrors 55 and 61
as a current source, current is steered away from current mirror
61 by current mirror 67 to switch from one state to a second
state, referring to column 7, lines 34-36 and 41-43 (EA15).
Appellants do not show the error in the examiner's position.
Nevertheless, the examiner's interpretation of the claim does not
seem to fit Mizuide. Current mirror 61 cannot be both a current
source and a current mirror as stated by the examiner. The
current I0 is steered into the current mirror 67 when V 1 is
increased to turn on mirror circuits 67 and 61 (col. 7,
lines 33-39), which is one state, and flows in the negative
direction when V2 is decreased to tun off the mirror circuits 67
and 61 (col. 4, lines 40-47), which is a second state. It is not
reasonable or accurate to say that current from current mirror 55
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