Appeal No. 95-0142
Application 07/817,961
claimed subject matter including the last two steps of the method
defined by independent claims 25 and 26 on appeal. We fully
agree with the appellants on this matter, and we adopt their
aforementioned reasons as our own for not sustaining the
examiner's § 112 rejection to the extent that it is based upon
the written description requirement.
In light of the foregoing, we cannot sustain the examiner's
rejection of claims 14 through 19 and 21 through 28 under the
first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112.
The § 103 Rejection
The examiner concedes that Jucha fails to disclose the
unloading/removing step and the continuing step recited in the
independent claims on appeal but argues that it would have been
obvious to provide the Jucha method with these steps in view of
Ukai. As support for this conclusion of obviousness, the
examiner states that "[u]nder the condition of Fig. 4 of Ukai et
al, the exhaustion of the etching chamber (1) is carried out
while the wafer is being unloaded from the supporting surface and
after the wafer is removed from the etching chamber (col. 6[,]
lines 58-68)" and that "[s]uch an evacuating action to a high
extent serves to force absorbed gases in the processing chamber
and on the substrates into the atmosphere, according to Ukai et
al. (col. 7[,] lines 1-7)" (answer, page 6).
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