Appeal No. 1997-0027
Application No. 08/117,443
any explanation on the part of the examiner as to why it would
have been obvious to employ the claimed process initiation
voltage in lieu of, or in addition to, the voltage of the
normal power supply used to carry out the normal sputtering
discharge. See Answer in its entirety. Nor do we find any
finding on the part of the examiner as to how Meacham remedies
the above deficiency. Id. The examiner simply fails to meet
his burden of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness
regarding the claimed process within the meaning of 35 U.S.C.
§ 103.
We turn next to the examiner’s rejections of apparatus
claims 23 through 37. As correctly found by the examiner at
page 3 and 4 of the Answer, Mashiro discloses a plasma
processing apparatus comprising (1) a plasma processing vacuum
chamber, (2) a cathode positioned within the chamber, and (3)
two power supplies coupled to the cathode. See also Mashiro,
pages 3 and 4, together with Figures 1 and 2. We also find
that it can be inferred from the disclosure of Mashiro that
the power supplies described therein can be adjusted to
produce a desired voltage for a given target material and a
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007