Appeal No. 96-1805
Application 08/200,432
ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellants’
disclosure. See, for example, Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley
Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1439 (Fed. Cir.),
cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
The appellants' claims all are directed to a method of wafer
bonding. Each of the three independent method claims includes a
preamble which establishes the environment in which the method is
performed as including a chamber with a gas inlet and a gas
outlet, means for holding a first wafer, means for holding a
second wafer and for moving it to the first wafer, and a pressure
application bar for contacting at least one of the wafers. Among
the several method steps thereafter recited in all three of these
claims is that the space between the two wafers be filled with a
gas having a lower viscosity than air "before the start of
sticking of surfaces of said wafers" (claims 1 and 13) and
"before starting a sticking of surfaces of said wafers" (claim
4). Claims 1 and 13 further require that a pressure of gas
"below atmospheric pressure" be set between the two wafers
applied "before starting a sticking of surfaces of said wafers."
All three independent claims stand rejected as being
unpatentable over the combined teachings of the prior art
admitted by the appellants plus Wells, Hoshi and Black, with or
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