Appeal No. 96-0386
Application No. 08/270,082
Examiner's statement of the grounds of rejection at page 3 of
the Answer is lacking in any rationale as to why the skilled
artisan would modify Suehiro in such a manner. We are left to
speculate why one of ordinary skill would have found it
obvious to choose a chemical that contains a Group VI element
for dry etching the silicon nitride layer in Suehiro. The
only reason we can discern is improper hindsight
reconstruction of Appellants' claimed invention.
We do note that, in the responsive arguments portion at
page 6 of the Answer, the Examiner alludes to a possible
motivating factor for modifying Suehiro. The Examiner,
although not stating the position clearly, apparently
concludes that since Pinto acknowledges that a chemical
containing a Group VI element (i.e. SF ) can be used to etch
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silicon nitride to reduce damage caused by anisotropic
etching, such would serve as a motivating factor to use SF as
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a dry etch chemical to prevent damage to the substrate surface
in Suehiro.
In response, Appellants contend (Brief, page 8) that such
an assertion lacks factual support in Pinto. In Appellants'
view, the disclosure of Pinto is directed to analysis of the
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