Appeal No. 1997-3668
Application 08/395,228
corner, and neither of the two cited references individually
or combined shows such an overlap. Appellants state the
Examiner admits that Murakami does not show an overlap, and
Burger makes it clear in the manufacturing process described
(column 4, lines 37-42, column 5, lines 7-9) that the two
layers formed are always directly coincident or line-on-line
for all regions, with no overlap. (Brief-pages 4 and 5.)
The Examiner responds with a new position that
Burger discloses a functional overlap, or alternatively, that
Burger when modified by Murakami, results in an overlap.
(Answer-page 5.) The Examiner explains the functional overlap
as all resistive portions under the terminal portions L11,
L12...L32 being effectively not present owing to the low
conductivity of the contacts overlying the resistive portions.
In the alternative, the Examiner’s resultant overlap is
reasoned that employing the Murakami resistor pattern (R1, R2-
-Figure 10) in place of the resistors of Figure 2 of Burger
results in the claimed overlap because Burger’s terminal
-5-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007