Appeal No. 2006-1458
Application No. 10/040,395
Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir.
1992).
With respect to the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection
of appealed independent claim 32 based on the combination of
Chiang and Litwin, Appellants asserts that the Examiner has
failed to set forth a prima facie case of obviousness since
proper motivation for the proposed combination of references has
not been established. After reviewing the arguments of record
from Appellants and the Examiner, we are in general agreement
with Appellants’ position as stated in the Briefs.
The Examiner proposes (Answer, page 5) to modify the
varactor device of Chiang by making the lightly doped well
regions 47 of p-type material as taught by Litwin. According to
the Examiner (id.), the ordinarily skilled artisan would have
made such a modification in order to form “a depletion-type
channel region with good channel modulation sensitivity ....” We
agree with Appellants (Brief, page 11; Reply Brief, page 3),
however, that neither Chiang nor Litwin has any disclosure that
the described devices provide the result asserted by the Examiner
nor why such a result would be desirable. The mere fact that the
prior art may be modified in the manner suggested by the Examiner
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007