Appeal No. 1999-1133
Application No. 08/766,199
barrier underlayer, at column 3, lines 55-68, “which would correspond to a liner.” Appellants take
issue with this characterization by the examiner because instant claim 5 calls for a “liner” and the portion
of Ohtsuka identified by the examiner refers to a “barrier layer.” However, appellants’ argument on this
point is not credible in view of appellants’ own specification describing the liner as a “liner or barrier
layer” [page 4, line 8] and a “liner/barrier layer” [page 4-line 15].
Notwithstanding appellants’ unconvincing arguments, we will not sustain the rejection of the claims
under 35 U.S.C. 102(b) and 103 because Ohtsuka clearly does not anticipate the subject matter of
independent claim 5 and dependent claim 6 and Mizobuchi, relied on for a limitation in claim 7, does
not provide for the deficiencies of Ohtsuka.
More specifically, while Ohtsuka does disclose the forming of a via, as claimed, and may be
considered to clean the sidewalls and exposed first metal bottom with a nitrogen-containing plasma for
the reasons expounded by the examiner and unanswered by appellants, it appears from the order of the
steps in independent method claim 1 that the liner is formed after the cleaning step. However, if the
liner, identified by the examiner as conduction layer 3, is formed first (see column 3, lines 59-64) and
then the plasma treatment is performed (see column 4, lines 10-12), the order of the instant claimed
method steps would not appear to be taught by Ohtsuka.
Further, even if we read independent claim 5 broadly, as not requiring any specific order to the
claimed steps, the last step still calls for filling the via with a second metal. If the examiner is considering
the via to be contact hole 2a of Ohtsuka, which contains the liner, or barrier, identified by the examiner
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