Appeal No. 2002-0934
Application No. 09/392,276
CITED PRIOR ART
As evidence of unpatentability, the Examiner relies on the following
references:
Tran et al. (Tran) 4,829,362 May 09, 1989
Hshieh et al. (Hshieh) 6,172,398 Jan. 09, 2001
Appellants’ admitted prior art (APA), specification pages 1-4, 7-8 and Figure 1.
The Examiner has rejected claims 1 to 10, 12 and 13 as unpatentable under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combination of Tran, Hshieh and APA.
DISCUSSION
We have carefully reviewed the claims, specification and applied prior art,
including all of the arguments advanced by both the Examiner and Appellants in
support of their respective positions. This review leads us to conclude that the
Examiner’s § 103 rejection is not well founded. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443,
1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992); In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468,
1471-72, 223 USPQ 785, 787-88 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the Examiner
and Appellants concerning the above-noted rejection, we refer to the Answer and
the Brief and Reply Brief. Appellants’ invention is directed to a semiconductor
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