Appeal No. 2003-1776
Application No. 09/383,923
do not find that the examiner has addressed the differences in the structures between
the two references with respect to how a skilled artisan would have looked to or been
motivated to drive the circuits using time division switching. Appellants have argued
these differences at great length in the brief and reply brief but the examiner has merely
maintained that “appellant’s (sic) argument on these ground is moot.” We do not find
this treatment of appellants’ arguments to be appropriate and do not find that the
examiner has adequately responded to these arguments. Therefore, we agree with
appellants that the examiner has improperly relied upon hindsight in an attempt to
reconstruct appellants claimed invention and find that the examiner has not established
a prima facie case of obviousness of the invention as recited in independent claim 1. 1
Therefore, we will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1 and its
dependent claims 2-11.
Similarly, we will not sustain the rejection of independent claim 12 and its
dependent claims 13-26 for the same reasons.
Also, similarly, we will not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 27 and 28 for
the same reasons above since the examiner has not relied upon the teachings of Lee
and Kubota to remedy the deficiency on the base combination or to provide a
motivation for the base combination.
1 We find appellants’ argument with respect to the term “complementary transistors” persuasive
in light of the disclosure of “CMOS analog switches” at page 11 of the original specification. (See brief at
pages 11 and 12.) Therefore, we additionally find dependent claim 8 to be duplicative of this limitation and
not a further limiting claim.
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