Appeal No. 1996-2246
Application No. 08/052,910
find that the Examiner has at least satisfied the burden of
presenting a prima facie case of obviousness. The burden is,
therefore, upon Appellants to come forward with evidence or
arguments which persuasively rebut the Examiner’s prima facie
case of obviousness. Arguments which Appellants could have
made but elected not to make in the Brief have not been
considered in this decision (note 37 37 CFR § § 1.192).
Appellants’ arguments (Brief, pages 6 and 7) in response
to the Examiner’s rejection initially center on the
combination of Ogura with Henry. As correctly pointed out by
the Examiner (Answer, page 8), however, the primary
combination which establishes the basis for the obviousness
rejection is Ogura and Komatsu with Henry being cited solely
for teaching the obviousness of using potassium hydroxide as a
wet etch chemical solution.
Further, we find Appellants’ arguments which do focus on
the merits of Komatsu (Brief, page 7) to be unpersuasive.
Appellants attack the relevance of Komatsu by asserting that,
contrary to the via hole producing method of the present
invention, an etching attack occurs on active regions in
Komatsu. It is clear from the Examiner’s statement of the
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