Appeal No. 2006-3246
Application No. 09/956,849
specimen in the at least one step in the lithograph track and additionally how
and why the upper surface would be perpendicular to the upper surface of
the stage in the spectroscopic ellipsometer. Therefore, the Examiner has not
established a prima facie case of obviousness and we cannot sustain the
rejection of dependent claim 6216.
With respect to dependent claim 6221, Appellants argue the teachings in
Figure 12 of Yoshioka in the Brief at page 14, but the Examiner relies upon
the teachings of Yoshioka in Figure 6 which teaches evaluation of the line
width to determine if line width is within the allowable range and to thereby
end the process. (Answer, p. 20). Appellants argue that the measurement of
the line width of the latent image is performed after the light exposure
treatment and before any other processing of the wafer. (Reply Brief, p. 2).
Appellants argue:
As such, since the measurements are not performed during a step
performed by the lithography track (i.e., the measurements are
performed between steps), these measurements cannot be used to obtain
a signature characterizing such a step that includes at least one
singularity representative of an end of the step (since the step has ended
before the measurements begin). . . Therefore, the "End" of the step of
Yoshioka referred to in the Examiner's Answer is not a step performed
on a specimen by a lithography track. Instead, the step that may be
"ended" in the method shown in Fig. 6 of Yoshioka is a data processing
operation performed by the CPU on the measured value of the line
width. A data processing step is not a specimen processing step as
presently claimed. As a result, contrary to the assertion in the Examiner's
Answer, the cited art does not read on all limitations of claim 6221.
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