Appeal No. 1997-3728
Application No. 08/323,311
The examiner responds that both Matsueda (see Answer, page 7) and Morozumi (see id. at 9)
teach “degenerative doping.” However, neither reference uses the term “degenerative doping.” Nor
does the examiner explain what the term is understood to mean, other than the implication, as set out
for example on page 7 of the Answer, that the MOS capacity having the “same type of conductivity” as
the TFT in the reference refers to “degenerative doping.” We agree with appellants that the “type of
conductivity,” in the context of Matsueda, merely refers to the type of charge carriers -- whether the
doping is of “n-type” or “p-type.”
Appellants do not provide a definition of “degenerative doping” in the Brief. However, we note
that when the term was added to Claim 9 appellants submitted that it is a term of art, understood to
mean “doping carried out to the extent that the resultant doped material is electrically conducting under
all circumstances, regardless of the bias conditions.” (Appellants’ Remarks submitted with the
amendment filed July 13, 1994 (Paper No. 4), page 7.) Appellants’ specification (page 8, lines 12
through 14) states that “the island is degeneratively doped either n or p type in order to render it
conducting under all operating conditions.”
We have performed a text search for the term “degenerative doping,” and terms related
thereto, in a database composed of U.S. patents and have identified U.S. Patent 3,633,078 (to Dill et
al.), which discloses structure of a field-effect transistor:
This doping (or introduction into the structure of the silicon gate member...of such an
impurity) may be carried out to such an extent that the silicon gate member exhibits
properties more akin to those of a conductor of electricity than a
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