Appeal No. 1996-2086
Application 08/255,588
Because appellant states that the dependent claims stand or fall with the
independent claim from which they depend (brief, page 3), I address only the independent
claims, i.e., claims 1, 8 and 10). See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)(1995).
Rejections of claim 1
Fuller discloses a method for impurity gettering by coating a surface of a substrate
with a metal or alloy as a gettering material, heating and then cooling the substrate and
gettering material, and removing the gettering material from the surface (col. 1, line 70 -
col. 2, line 5; col. 3, lines 28-33). The coating is carried out by dipping the substrate in a
molten bath of the metal or alloy, or by electroplating or thermal deposition (col. 2, lines 53-
55). Fuller teaches that metals which have been found to be particularly suitable for use
with a germanium substrate are antimony, gold, silver, tin and zinc (col. 2, lines 63-65).
The disclosed temperatures to which substrates coated with gettering material are heated
are 450-900EC (col. 3, lines 1-2) and at least 500EC (col. 8, lines 16-18).
As pointed out by the examiner (answer, page 5), the melting points of tin and zinc
are, respectively, 232EC and 419.5EC. Thus, when a substrate coated with these
materials is heated to any temperature disclosed by Fuller, the gettering material is at a
temperature above its melting point as required by appellant’s claim 1.
For the above reasons, Fuller discloses a method which includes all of the
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