Appeal No. 95-2312
Application No. 07/897,870
For the reasons which follow, we will sustain the
examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 22 and 49 and of
the nonargued claims which depend therefrom, but we will not
sustain his rejection of independent claims 48, 52 and 53 nor
of the claims which depend therefrom nor of argued dependent
claims 6-8. That is, the rejection of claims 1, 3, 5, 10-16,
19-24, 26-29, 32-36, 38, 39, 42, 43, 46, 47 and 49-51 will be
sustained, but the rejection of claims 6-8, 18, 31, 45, 48 and
52-54 will not be sustained.
We agree with the examiner’s basic position that Hoffman
satisfies the requirement of independent claims 1, 22 and 49
concerning an electrically insulating material covering the
nonsputtering regions of the target to thereby substantially
prevent catastrophic sparking during sputtering. Stated
otherwise, these independent claims fail to distinguish over
Hoffman in the manner argued by the appellant. More
specifically, the insulating collar 57 of Hoffman (e.g., see
Figure 1 and lines 49-53 in column 5) and the target region
thereunder correspond to the here claimed insulating material
and nonsputtering regions. Moreover, patentee’s insulating
collar would necessarily and inherently prevent catastrophic
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007