Appeal No. 2005-0176
Application No. 10/076,716
Claims 6 through 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Smith in view applicants’ admitted
prior art.
Reference is made to the briefs and the answer for the
respective positions of the appellants and the examiner.
OPINION
We have carefully considered the entire record before us,
and we will reverse the anticipation rejection of claims 1, 2, 4,
5, 14 through 16 and 46 through 48, and reverse the obviousness
rejections of claims 6 through 13, 22, 26 through 31, 33 and 34.
Turning first to the anticipation rejection of independent
claims 1 and 14, the examiner has made findings (answer, pages
3 and 6) that the diodes 810 and 816 in Smith (Figure 8; column
13, lines 13 through 20) precharge the segmented electrostatic
discharge (ESD) buses during normal operation of the integrated
circuit. Appellants argue (reply brief, pages 1, 3 and 4) that
the diodes 810 and 816 can not function as a charge pump, and
that the examiner has incorrectly assigned a meaning to the term
“charge pump” that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of
the term. According to the definitions provided by appellants
(reply brief, page 3), a charge pump has to use one or more
capacitors to generate an output voltage.
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