Appeal No. 1998-2948
Application 08/400,861
art in interconnection metallization. Since Kiyota discloses
an Al-Cu alloy, the same alloy mentioned in Joshi, one of
ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to
substitute an aluminum/rare earth element alloy for the Al-Cu
alloy in Kiyota given that Joshi teaches that an aluminum/rare
earth element alloy provides improved characteristics over
prior art Al-Cu (or, at least, teaches that an aluminum/rare
earth element alloy can be used in place of Al-Cu
metallization alloy). Yamamoto, the best reference, teaches
that aluminum/rare earth element alloys may be used
alternatively to Al-Fe and Al-Co alloys as electrodes in LCDs.
Since Kiyota discloses Al-Fe and Al-Co alloys, one of ordinary
skill in the art would have been motivated to substitute an
aluminum/rare earth element alloy for the Al-Fe and Al-Co
alloys of Kiyota given the teachings of Yamamoto. For these
reasons, we conclude that the collective teachings of the
references would have suggested the obviousness of
substituting an aluminum/rare earth element alloy for the
aluminum alloy in Kiyota. The aluminum/rare earth element
alloy would still use an anodic oxidation film to increase the
chemical resistance during etching as taught by Kiyota. As to
- 10 -
Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007