Appeal No. 1997-3730
Application No. 08/095,147
within the inactive region of a wafer. In addressing the
claim limitations, the Examiner proposes the same rationale
and combination of references as set forth with regard to
independent claims 1 and 7. In our view, the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of independent claim 13 can not be
sustained for all of the reasons discussed supra. We do note
that, as pointed out by the Examiner at page 9 of the Answer,
the drawing in Figure 2 of Tai illustrates a diode placed
between the anode and ground in a plasma etch system.
Although this disclosure of Tai would appear to read directly
on a key feature of Appellants’ independent claim 13, this
claimed feature cannot be considered in isolation. Our review
of claim 13 reveals that the charge transfer prevention diode
is recited in combination with several other features of the
etch damage prevention device including a specific positional
relationship between the anode, cathode, wafer, and the
specific wafer retainer structure. In our view, for all of
the reasons discussed supra, any proposed combination of the
applied prior art that could result in the claimed invention
must be an exercise in improper hindsight reconstruction.
From our earlier discussion, we remain convinced that the
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