Appeal 2007-0942
Application 10/666,742
We now turn to the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of claims 21, 23-27,
and 30-34.2 The Examiner appreciates that Leedy does not disclose forming
a layer of unconsolidated material over at least an outer peripheral portion of
the active surface of the semiconductor substrate and at least partially
consolidating the material. However, we fully concur with the Examiner
that Grigg evidences the obviousness of doing so to achieve the benefit
articulated by Grigg, namely, to provide stiffeners for preventing tortional
flexion or bending of the connective structures for semiconductor devices.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that “neither Leedy nor
Grigg provides any teaching or suggestion that the stiffening elements of
Grigg, which merely reinforce or stiffen parts of a flexible substrate as
components are being secured thereto, would be useful in a thinning
process” (principal Br. 9, last para.). The stiffening elements of Grigg
would not have been incorporated into the structure of Leedy to facilitate the
thinning process but, rather, to provide bending stability to the flexible
substrate. While Appellants maintain that “it is a thick peripheral portion
of a semiconductor substrate that reinforces the thinned portion of the
substrate - no additional element need be formed on or secured to the
substrate for reinforcement” (sentence bridging principal Br. 9-10), it would
have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that adding
the stiffeners of Grigg would provide additional bending stability to the
semiconductor substrate of Leedy. We note that Appellants base no
2 Since Appellants do not provide separate arguments for this group of
claims either, these claims stand or fall together with claim 21.
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