Appeal 2007-2047
Application 10/335,187
claims is further magnified by the Examiner’s seemingly conflicting
statements as to what Carey (U.S. Patent No. 5,091,339), a reference relied
upon in all of the Examiner’s stated rejections, teachings or suggests relative
to the claimed subject matter. In describing Carey for example, the
Examiner states that: “A seed layer can be applied to aid in the deposition of
the conductive coatings (Answer 3). In the next paragraph, the Examiner
states that “Carey (5,091,339) fails to teach chemically roughening the
epoxy layer, applying a seed layer and plating to produce a plated surface”
(id.). This is significant because the Examiner maintains that Lauffer (U.S.
Patent No. 6,156, 221) describes chemical roughening, seeding and plating
steps in forming printed wiring boards and asserts that the addition of such
steps as disclosed by Lauffer to Carey would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. The obviousness of this
modification is contested by Appellant in the Briefs.
However, a review of Carey reveals that this applied patent includes a
description of eight preferred embodiments for furnishing conductor
channels and vias in multilayer metal interconnects (Carey, col. 3, l. 10 - col.
8, l. 21). The Examiner refers to the sixth preferred embodiment of Carey in
rejecting the appealed claims (Answer 3; Carey, col. 6, l. 36- col. 7, l. 8).
The sixth embodiment is concerned with forming vias and channels using a
stamping step wherein a soft or liquid polyimide is impacted with a plate
leaving via and channel indentations therein. An alternative epoxy material
is also taught by Carey for use in this embodiment. As for any metallization
steps that follow the formation of the vias and channels, Carey presents these
steps in a portion of the patent description following the described eight
different conductor channel formation and via formation embodiments.
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