Appeal No. 95-1750
Application No. 07/891,123
of positive photoresists which have dissolution rates within
the here claimed range. Highly relevant to this issue of
obviousness is the appellant's point that the additive of
patentee's developer is explicitly described as protecting the
unexposed portion of the photoresist from developer attack and
that the unexposed portions of the photoresist in Guild's
examples exhibit relatively high dissolution rates when
exposed to developers sans additive. Because the photoresists
defined by appealed claim 1 possess extremely low unexposed
portion dissolution rates, no basis exists for believing that
the unexposed portions of these photoresists require the
protection afforded by Guild's additive. Stated otherwise,
the examiner's obviousness conclusion is not well founded
because the problem solved by patentee's additive (i.e.,
protection of the unexposed portions from developer attack) is
not exhibited by the photoresists under consideration wherein
the unexposed portions are not subject to developer attack
since they have such low dissolution rates.
For the above stated reasons and because the deficiencies
of Guild are not supplied by the other applied references, we
cannot sustain the examiner's section 103 rejection of
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