Appeal No. 2000-1585
Application No. 08/883,427
appellant’s claim 27 does not require that a ceramic
coating be annealed or a specific dielectric constant.
Claim 27 instead requires that curing and
annealing steps be performed on a “flowable oxide”. No
order for these steps is required, so the curing and
annealing may occur simultaneously. Furthermore, the
specification discloses that the annealing may occur
either along with the cure, or subsequent thereto (see
page 9, lines 15-20).
Ballance ‘868 in combination with Sobczak meet
(sic) all the requirements of claim 27. Ballance ‘868
teaches heating a hydrogen silsesquioxane flowable
oxide layer in a hydrogen atmosphere to convert, or
cure, the film into a ceramic. As the cure and anneal
steps of claim 27 may occur simultaneously, claim 27
reads on the single heat step of Ballance.
Appellants have filed no rebuttal to the examiner’s above-
quoted response. We agree with the examiner’s position that
hydrogen gas is present in the environment where the flowable
oxide is being heated, and the claim does not distinguish between
the heating of a resin in hydrogen and the treating of a ceramic
in hydrogen as argued by appellants.
Furthermore, appellants’ argument regarding the alleged
specific value of the dielectric constant of less than 3.2 for
the flowable oxide after the heating process is meritless since
this limitation is not recited in the claim.
Therefore, we sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 27
over Sobczak in view of Ballance. Accordingly, the decision of
the examiner under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is affirmed.
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