Appeal No. 94-2080
Application 07/982,068
in the manner as is required by the appellants’ claims. While it
is true that the finger-like mesas have to be oriented in some
direction, but without specific evidence, it cannot simply be
assumed that the appellants’ claimed orientation either is well
known in the art at the time of the invention or otherwise would
have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art.
Additionally, we note that the curved recesses between
Wickstrom’s finger-like mesas are not exactly the rectangular
parallelpiped recesses called for by the appellants’ claims.
The examiner’s discussion on page 4 of the answer with
regard to Imaizumi is not understood and appears erroneous.
According to the examiner (p.4, lines 2-4), Imaizumi’s Figure 10
illustrates that on a (100) plane surface a rectangular groove 94
can be formed at a 45 degree angle to the <100> direction. Also
according to the examiner (p.4, lines 16-20), evidently based
also on Figure 10 of Imaizumi, a groove with the desired side
walls can be formed on a (100) surface oriented wafer with an
anisotropic etch through a rectangular window whose sides make a
45 degree angle with the <110> direction of the substrate wafer.
Both positions are misplaced.
Figure 10 of Imaizumi shows two rectangular windows 94 and
95 on a substrate having a surface plane orientation (100). The
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