Ex parte Mcadams et al.

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 13, 2000

08343276 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 13, 2000)

1
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today (1)
was not written for publication in a law journal and (2) is
not binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 22
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
__________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
__________
Ex parte HUGH P. McADAMS and
CHING-YUH TSAY
__________
Appeal No. 1997-1364
Application 08/343,276
__________
ON BRIEF
__________
Before THOMAS, JERRY SMITH, and BARRY, Administrative Patent
Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants have appealed to the Board from the examiner's
final rejection of claims 5, 6, 14, and 15, which constitute
all the claims on appeal.
Representative claim 5 is reproduced below:
5. A substrate bias pumping arrangement comprising:
first and second charge pump circuits connected in
separate circuit paths between an input terminal and a
substrate, the first and second charge pump circuits operating
alternatively supplying charge to the substrate in response to
Appeal No. 1997-1364
Application 08/343,276
A separate rejection of claim 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over a patent to Douglas was1
withdrawn at page 2 of the answer.
2
alternative levels of an input signal applied to the input
terminal, each of the charge pump circuits including:
a pumping capacitor;
a p-channel pumping transistor having a control electrode
and having a conduction path connected in a series circuit
path with the pumping capacitor between the input terminal and
the substrate; and
a bootstrap circuit connected between the input terminal
and the control electrode for enabling the p-channel pumping
transistor to conduct charge from the pumping capacitor to the
substrate without imparting all of a threshold voltage of the
p-channel pumping transistor as a voltage loss.
The following references are relied on by the examiner:
Truong 4,733,108 Mar. 22, 1988
Furuyama 5,343,087 Aug. 30, 1994
(filing date June 10, 1991)
Claims 5, 6, 14, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103. As evidence of obviousness, the examiner relies upon
Truong alone as to claims 14 and 15, with the addition of
Furuyama as to claims 5 and 6.1
Rather than repeat the positions of the appellants and
the examiner, reference is made to the brief and the answer
for the respective details thereof.
OPINION
Appeal No. 1997-1364
Application 08/343,276
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We reverse the rejections of claims 5, 6, 14, and 15
under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Each of independent claims 5 and 14 in part recites the
feature of a bootstrap circuit which enables the p-channel
pumping transistor to conduct a charge from the pumping
capacitor to the substrate claimed "without imparting all of a
threshold voltage of the p-channel pumping transistor as a
voltage loss."
The examiner relies upon Truong in both rejections for
independent claims 5 and 14 on appeal. The answer correlates
the bootstrap circuit of the claim to transistor and capacitor
circuit elements at the bottom of Figure 5. Neither the
statement of the rejection at pages 4 and 5 of the answer, nor
the responsive arguments portion of the answer beginning at
page 6 discusses specifically the above noted quoted feature
of each independent claim on appeal.
For their part, appellants urge the patentability of each
independent claim on appeal based upon common arguments which
are set forth at pages 10 and 11 of the brief as to the first
rejection of claim 5 and at pages 17 and 18 as to the
rejection of claim 14. There, appellants set forth what they
Appeal No. 1997-1364
Application 08/343,276
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allege is the second major difference between the pending
claims and the Truong patent, which feature is essentially
assuming for the sake of argument that the examiner's position
that it would have been obvious to the artisan to have
substituted the n-channel pumping transistor 70 in Figure 5 of
Truong for a p-channel pumping transistor, the above quoted
feature would not have been met. That is, their position is
that "the full threshold voltage Vtp of the p-channel
transistor 70 is imparted as a voltage loss to the output.”
See, for example, the paragraph bridging pages 10 and 11 of
the brief. The examiner's answer never comes to grips with
this argument nor the limitation itself as indicated earlier.
According to the description of Figure 5 at the bottom of
column 2 of Truong, the full FET 70 voltage drop of
approximately 0.2 volts maximum would still obtain or remain
once this transistor is conducting to impart the negative bias
to the substrate depicted in Figure 5, for example. Both
appellants' disclosed and claimed invention as well as Truong
consider this as a threshold voltage associated with the
transistor with respect to pumping transistors of each device.
On the basis of the examiner's failure to address this
limitation, on the strength of appellants' arguments which
Appeal No. 1997-1364
Application 08/343,276
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have not been traversed by the examiner, as well as the actual
teachings and suggestions to the artisan in Truong, it appears
that Truong's chip biased generator would not function in the
manner set forth at the end of each of independent claims 5
and 14 on appeal in accordance with the quoted language above.
In view of the foregoing, we must therefore reverse the
rejection of independent claims 5 and 14 on appeal. The
additional teachings of Furuyama as to the rejection of claim
5 do not appear to us and the examiner does not assert that
Furuyama buttresses the teachings of Truong as to the above-
quoted limitation. As such, we must therefore reverse the
rejection of dependent claims 6 and 15 on appeal. Therefore,
the decision of the examiner rejecting claims 5, 6, 14 and 15
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
REVERSED
)
JAMES D. THOMAS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
JERRY SMITH )
Administrative Patent Judge ) APPEALS AND
)
Appeal No. 1997-1364
Application 08/343,276
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) INTERFERENCES
)
LANCE LEONARD BARRY )
Administrative Patent Judge )
JDT/cam
Appeal No. 1997-1364
Application 08/343,276
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Richard B. Havill
Texas Instruments Inc.
Patent Activity, M/S 219
P.O. Box 655474
Dallas, TX 75262