Appeal 2007-0803
Application 10/197,801
discussion at lines 16 through 18 states that “the absolute value of the
threshold voltage of a MOS transistor is set to be low in the active state and
high in the standby state,” as recited at the end of claim 1 on appeal.
Correspondingly, we are equally unpersuaded by Appellants’ remarks
as to the rejection of the identified claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102 according
to topics 1 through 4 discussed at pages 3 through 8 of the Reply Brief.
Again, Appellants invite us to read into the claimed subject matter the
Specification by asserting that the Examiner’s views with respect to an
“active state” and “standby state” are not a “complete definition” of these
states as urged at page 5 of the Reply Brief. To the extent pages 4 and 5 of
the Reply Brief urge the Examiner has improperly relied upon inherency
with respect to Hirano, the Examiner has not formally recited any inherency
argument except the discussion at page 11 of the Answer. There, the
Examiner merely uses the term inherency to describe what Hirano explicitly
teaches was known in the prior art as depicted in his figures 12 and 13 which
the Examiner directly correlates to be consistent with Appellants’ own
disclosed recognition of the inherent operation of the claimed transistors. It
appears to us that to the extent Appellants are arguing the inherency of the
claimed invention based upon their own disclosure, a rather unique argument
in itself, the Examiner is certainly permitted to take the positions taken at
page 11 of the Answer since Hirano specifically teaches about the known
properties of the identified transistors, which is consistent with Appellants’
own disclosed characterization of these same transistors.
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