Appeal No. 1998-2671
Application No. 08/480,543
any administrative delay by the Office. Notwithstanding our
misgivings about the justification for Appellants’ assertion of
the requirement for a two-way test, we nevertheless are convinced
of the obviousness of the ‘951 patent claims 16-18 over the
present application. In our view, the alloy formation at the
prescribed aluminum deposition temperature disclosed in the
present application would necessarily cause the deposition
process with the same prescribed temperature set forth in the
patent claims to fill the insulator opening with the formed
alloy. The language of ‘951 patent claim 16 which, as alluded to
by Appellants, describes the migration of aluminum into the
insulator opening does not preclude the migration of a formed
alloy into the opening as well.
In summary, we have not sustained the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) rejection of claims 10-11, 13, and 18. We have,
however, sustained the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections of claims 3,
9-11, 13, and 18, as well as the obviousness-type double
patenting rejection of claims 3, 10-12, and 18. Therefore, the
Examiner’s decision rejecting all of the appealed claims 3, 9-13,
and 18 is affirmed.
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