Appeal No. 1998-0915
Application No. 08/441,194
on our agreement with appellant’s position that Ipposhi
fundamentally teaches away from the claimed invention.
Each of independent claims 1 and 2 recites that the
connecting portion of a piezoresistance element has at least
one subgrain boundary transverse to and intersecting the edges
of the recrystallized silicon film on which a gauge resistor
is formed. Appellant properly points out that the entire
thrust of Ipposhi’s disclosure is to prevent such subgrain
boundaries from occurring in the claimed location. Although
Ipposhi discloses several different embodiments for handling
subgrain boundaries in such piezoresistance elements, all of
Ipposhi’s embodiments avoid the occurrence of subgrain
boundaries occurring transverse to the connecting portion of
the resistor between the end contacts of the resistor.
The examiner postulates that since Ipposhi teaches that
four resistors are connected in a bridge arrangement in
piezoelectric pressure detectors, then the interconnection of
four such resistors in Ipposhi would necessarily require that
the resistors cross such subgrain boundaries. The examiner
notes that Ipposhi teaches the presence of conductive portions
at the subgrain boundaries [Figure 7], and the examiner finds
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