Appeal No. 1997-4024
Application No. 08/299,407
appellants' claimed invention. Although the examiner states
that "it is well known in the art that silicon can be polished
by piperazine and colloidal silica" (page 5 of Answer), the
examiner has not supplied any prior art reference to support
the finding in the face of appellants' challenge to do so. In
any event, even assuming that it was known in the art to use
piperazine and colloidal silica to polish silicon, the
examiner has not established on this record that it would have
been obvious to replace the prior art technique of dry etching
with such a polishing step to flatten a polysilicon layer in
the specifically claimed method of making a thin film
capacitor or semiconductor. In our view, the known use of
piperazine and colloidal silica slurry to polish polysilicon,
without more, is insufficient to establish the obviousness of
the claimed method of manufacturing a thin-film capacitor and
semiconductor.
In conclusion, based on the foregoing, the examiner's
decision rejecting the appealed claims is reversed.
REVERSED
EDWARD C. KIMLIN )
Administrative Patent Judge )
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