Appeal No. 95-2454
Application No. 07/396,733
Applicant asserts that these claims recite material that makes the claims patentable separate from
the other claims. More particularly, applicant asserts claims 7, 29, 42 and 53 require a “multi-part
semiconductor pocket” and the examiner has not proffered any evidence showing this feature to have been
obvious. Brief, p. 20. The examiner responds indicating that Frouin, Figure 7, discloses a multi-part
pocket.
We reverse the rejection of these claims.
We can not agree with the examiner that Frouin, Figure 7 renders obvious the additional required
steps of claims 7, 29, 42 and 53 and the claims dependent therefrom. As pointed out by applicant (Brief
p. 5-6), the subject matter of these claims require formation of a low resistivity buried layer which crosses
under an oxide channel forming a pocket including two separate epitaxial areas connected by a single low
resistivity area. Frouin’s Figure 7 does not suggests the claimed steps for making such a pocket. Nor has
the examiner presented a rationale as to why the steps would have otherwise been obvious.
The rejections based upon Doo, Jones, Clevenger, and Murphy.
Claims 2-3, 5-9, 12, 14, 15, 19, 20, and 36-48 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over the combination of Doo or Jones and Clevenger and Murphy. Claims 25-35 and 49-59
are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over these same references additionally combined with Karcher or
Makimoto. We reverse these rejections.
In the examiner’s view, Doo and Jones each teach a process of combining PN junction horizontal
isolation with oxide side-wall isolation by growing an epitaxial layer through an oxide mask. The examiner
considers Clevenger and Murphy as teaching that the selective growth of an epitaxial layer through an oxide
mask and the sinking an oxide region into a single crystal layer by selective oxidation using a silicon nitride
mask are alternative procedures. The examiner then concludes that it would have been “an obvious
alternate and essentially equivalent process to form the oxide sidewalls in the Doo or Jones process by the
sunken oxide technique of Clevenger or Murphy.” Examiner’s Answer, p. 7.
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