Appeal No. 2001-1444
Application No. 08/994,706
that the operation of the offsetting reflection wave generating
circuitry requires a mismatching of impedances rather than the
claimed equality of impedances. We are further persuaded, as
pointed out by Appellants, that in the description beginning at
column 9, line 22 of Yamashita, including equations (18)-(25)
directed to the selection of RL and CL values, there is no
teaching or suggesting that RL should be set equal to the
characteristic impedance ZO.
We recognize that the Examiner, as fundamental support for
asserting the obviousness of Appellants’ claimed invention, has
set forth (Answer, page 5) that “ . . . it is well known in the
art that maximum damping is obtained by equalizing the values of
the two impedances.” We find, however, no evidence forthcoming
from the Examiner that would support such a contention. “[T]he
Board cannot simply reach conclusions based on it own
understanding or experience - or on its assessment of what would
be basic knowledge or common sense. Rather, the Board must point
to some concrete evidence in the record in support of these
findings.” In re Zurko, 258 F.3d 1379, 1386, 59 USPQ2d 1693,
1697 (Fed. Cir. 2001). See also In re Lee, 277 F.3d 1338, 1344-
45, 61 USPQ2d 1430, 1434-35 (Fed. Cir. 2002), in which the court
required evidence for the determination of unpatentability by
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007