Appeal 2007-0240
Application 10/602,462
claim 25 as representative of independent claims 36 and 37. Additionally,
separate arguments are presented within the first stated rejection as to
dependent claim 31. Lastly, separate arguments are presented as to
dependent claim 35 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We will address these
in turn.
Although we recognize from the arguments presented in the Brief and
Reply Brief that certain portions of the Specification characterize certain
identified structural elements as broadly “defining” certain unspecified
relationships among other disclosed elements, correspondingly, the language
“for defining” is used in the photoresist clause of representative independent
claim 25 on appeal and the language “defining” is also used three times in
the remaining clauses of this claim. To the extent the use of this term
actually relates to the disclosed invention, its reference in the claim, when
considered against prior art, is essentially a broad recitation of vague
structural relationships. Therefore, it is unclear how Appellants’ arguments
that Appellants’ disclosure in any meaningful way may be used to clarify the
word “define” as claimed and therefore distinguish over the applied prior art
and the manner in which the Examiner has applied the correlation according
to the showing of modified figure 3 of Rose at page 4 of the Answer. In
addition to the Examiner’s modified showing as well at page 9 of the
Answer to the extent it relates to specified angles, the Examiner’s Statement
of the Rejection at page 3 and the correlated modified showing interpreting
certain teachings with respect to the claimed invention at page 4 of the
Answer are consistent with our understanding of the reference. The broad
definitional relationships of the claimed insulation layer with respect to the
resist layer of the claims is shown with respect to insulation layer 70 and
3
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