Appeal No. 95-3455
Application 07/945,902
ingredients not disclosed by appellants. Thus, the narrow
question before us resolves to whether or not a person of
ordinary skill in the art, given appellants' original
disclosure, would have understood that an additional step of
coating the etched layers of polysilicon and tungsten silicide
with an
insulating layer was required "to make a floating gate" as the
language of claim 6 requires.
As we have stated above, as a "comprising" claim, claim 6
is open to the inclusion of additional steps and ingredients,
even steps and ingredients neither contemplated nor disclosed
by appellants. Thus, although claim 6 recites only four steps
necessary to form a non-volatile memory, we take official
notice of the fact that in real practice there are numerous
preparatory steps, process steps and finishing steps required
to form a "non-volatile memory having a floating gate
electrode" which steps are not recited in claim 6. Therefore,
in order to sustain the examiner's position, we must be
directed to some evidence that a person of ordinary skill in
the art would have recognized appellants' recited step "(d)"
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