Appeal No. 2004-0607
Application No. 09/792,848
Momohara; and claim 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over
Momohara in view of Zhu.1
OPINION
We affirm the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph, and reverse the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph
A specification complies with the 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph, written description requirement if it conveys with
reasonable clarity to those skilled in the art that, as of the
filing date sought, the inventor was in possession of the
invention. See Vas-Cath Inc. v. Mahurkar, 935 F.2d 1555, 1563-
64, 19 USPQ2d 1111, 1117 (Fed. Cir. 1991); In re Kaslow, 707 F.2d
1366, 1375, 217 USPQ 1089, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 1983).
The appellant’s claim 23, which is the sole independent
claim, requires that P-wells are biased by a bias potential above
Vss. No mention of Vss appears in the appellant’s original
disclosure.
The appellant argues, in reliance upon Weste, that Vss is
the lowest voltage available on the chip (brief, page 5). Weste
states that “[t]he symbol ‘0’ will be assumed to be a low voltage
1 A rejection of claims 23-29 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, is withdrawn in the examiner’s answer (page 3).
3
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