Appeal No. 1997-0350
Application No. 08/191,384
1. A method of cleaning unwanted film deposition from a
throttle valve mounted on a vacuum chamber for regulating gas
pressure in said chamber, comprising the steps of:
positioning said throttle valve juxtaposed to said
vacuum chamber; and
flowing at least one cleaning gas into said vacuum
chamber at a temperature and pressure in contact with said
throttle valve for a length of time such that said unwanted
film deposition is removed from said throttle valve.
The examiner relies upon the following reference as
evidence of obviousness:
Law et al. (Law) 4,960,488 Oct. 2, 1990
Appellants' claimed invention is directed to a method of
cleaning a throttle valve employed in a vacuum deposition
system. The method entails positioning the throttle valve in
juxtaposition to the vacuum chamber rather than downstream
from the shut-off valve. According to appellants, the claimed
arrangement eliminates the need of completely disassembling
and manually cleaning the throttle valve after approximately
500 to 1,000 deposition cycles (see pages 4 and 5 of the
present specification).
Appealed claims 1-16, 20 and 22-32 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Law.
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