Appeal No. 2003-0291 Page 8
Application No. 09/569,074
Lastly, we turn to the rejection of claims 1 to 4 and 7 to 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being unpatentable over Hasegawa in view of Ball. Ball teaches in Figures 8 and 9 a
wafer holding table 100 having a support surface 102 and a double sticky film frame
104. The film frame 104 has a generally circular configuration with a diameter at least
as great as that of the wafer 20. The film frame 104 adheres firmly to the surface 102
of the wafer holding table 100. In operation, a wafer 20 is diced into individual die 110,
112, 114, 116, 118, 120, 122 by a segmenting apparatus 42 of the type shown in Figure
1. Then, the segmented die 110-122 are individually moved to the wafer holding table
100 by suitable pick and place equipment (not illustrated) and adhered firmly to the film
104. Then, all of the die 110-122 are simultaneously ground down to the desired
thickness by one or more grinding wheels 40 of the type shown in Figure 5.
In the rejection based upon Hasegawa and Ball, the examiner determined (final
rejection, p. 4) that the adhesive of Ball and the holding means of Hasegawa (i.e.,
holding membrane 8 and template 9) were art recognized functional equivalents and
that the substitution of one for other would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art at the time the invention was made.
In our opinion, the teachings of Hasegawa and Ball do not establish that the
adhesive of Ball and the holding means of Hasegawa (i.e., holding membrane 8 and
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