Appeal No. 1997-3728
Application No. 08/323,311
“[W]hile Matsueda teaches a similar sequence of processing steps, Matsueda’s islands are not
electrically conductive, but rather a semiconductive material whose conductivity is dependent upon the
bias conditions present in the surrounding structure.” (Id. at 12, emphasis omitted.)
According to appellants, as set forth on pages 10 through 12 of the Brief, in their process the
islands are “degeneratively doped,” unlike island 88 in Matsueda. As a consequence, in the capacitor
electrodes disclosed by Matsueda, the electrodes are conducting only under bias conditions, rather than
under all conditions. (See id. at 14 and 15.)
The step set forth in Claim 6 that corresponds to the formation of the “conductive material,”
which in turn forms an electrode of the storage capacitor, is the first positively recited step: “forming an
array of islands of a conductive material.” We note that in the appendix of claims submitted with the
Brief, the corresponding step improperly recites changes that were proposed in an After Final
amendment submitted January 18, 1996 (Paper No. 14): “a) forming an array of islands of material
which is electrically conducting under all operating conditions.” However, as appellants were notified
by the examiner in Paper No. 15, the proposed amendment was not entered, and would not be entered
upon the filing of an appeal. Appellants acknowledge that the amendment was not entered on page 3
of the Brief. Thus, the claims that are before us recite that an “array of islands of a conductive material”
is formed.
Claims are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation during prosecution, and the
scope of a claim cannot be narrowed by reading disclosed limitations into the claim. See In re Morris,
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