Appeal No. 1998-1871 Page 6
Application No. 08/383,112
prima facie obvious must be supported by evidence, as shown by
some objective teaching in the prior art or by knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art that
would have led that individual to combine the relevant
teachings of the references to arrive at the claimed
invention. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d
1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
The appellant argues that the applied prior art does not
suggest the claimed subject matter. We agree.
All the claims under appeal require a heater capable of
sufficiently heating a semiconductor substrate in a vacuum
chamber to degas the substrate. However, this limitation is6
not suggested by the applied prior art. In that regard, while
Matsuda does teach suction stage 3 having heating and cooling
elements 4 therein, Matsuda does not teach or suggest using
his suction stage 3 to heat a semiconductor substrate to degas
the substrate. We have reviewed the other applied prior art
6See element c) of claims 1, 7 and 8 (the independent
claims on appeal).
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