Appeal No. 2002-1642
Application 09/300,563
[sic, 6 and 7], and applying the same microwave for
five minutes to generate plasma [column 4, line 34,
through column 5, line 12]
The appellants contend that Fukuda would not have rendered
the subject matter recited in claims 1 through 3 and 10 obvious
within the meaning of § 103(a) because it is silent as to the
manner in which the processing gases are introduced into the
chamber and thus non-responsive to the gas feeding limitations in
these claims.
Fukuda, however, clearly shows in Figure 2 that the gases
for processing substrate 1 are separately introduced into the
chamber 5 via two conduits 6 and 7 located on the same side of
the chamber just above the gas evacuation port 9 and that the
cleaning gas is separately introduced into the chamber 5 via a
third conduit 8 also located just above the gas evacuation port.
Fukuda additionally teaches that when the conduits 6 and 7 are
simultaneously opened to feed the processing gases into the
chamber, the conduit 8 is closed or blocked. This disclosure
would have suggested, if it does not actually teach, the step of
selectively opening a first number of a plurality of gas nozzles
(the ends of Fukuda’s processing gas conduits 6 and 7) while
selectively blocking a second number of the plurality of gas
nozzles (the end of Fukuda’a cleaning gas conduit 8) as recited
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