Appeal No. 94-3000
Application 07/914,654
additive drying effect. That is, one of ordinary skill in the
art would have recognized that the reduced amount of the IPA
vapor can be employed during the drying step of Steck to
obtain the enhanced effect of removing water spots and drops
on the wafers, with the minimum negative effect associated
with using a large volume of the IPA vapor.
Appellants appear to argue at page 1 of the reply brief
that
a vapor of the organic solvent referred to by the Kremer and
the Kurokawa references is not free of condensation. We,
however, note that the term "vapor" by definition means free
of conden-sation. Appellants simply have not proffered any2
objective evidence to demonstrate that the IPA vapor used in
the conven-tional vapor drying technique contains
condensation. See In re Greenfield, 571 F.2d 1185, 1189, 197
USPQ 227, 230 (CCPA 1978) (Counsel's arguments and conclusory
statements must be supported by objective evidence and cannot
take the place of such evidence).
2According to page 617 of Grant & Hackh's Chemical
Dictionary, Fifth Edition, 1987 (attached herewith), vapor is
"[a] gas, especially from a substance that at ordinary
temperature is a solid or liquid".
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