Appeal No. 1998-1102
Application No. 08/761,883
combination of Cederbaum and Manning. We agree. In our view,
the Examiner’s reliance on design considerations as a basis
for the proposed combination of Cederbaum and Manning is not
well founded. Appellants’ disclosed intended function of
protecting the polysilicon resistor from deterioration due to
infiltration of mobile contaminants can only be achieved
through the particular insulator stacking arrangement recited
in appealed claim 15. In our opinion, the Examiner’s finding
of the particular claimed insulator stacking arrangement to be
merely a design consideration is totally devoid of any support
on the record.
We further note that we do not disagree with the
Examiner’s interpretation of the disclosure of Manning. This
reference, and we presume countless uncited others, provides a
teaching of insulating layers in contacting or non-contacting
relationship with a semiconductor device substrate.
Notwithstanding this prior art disclosure, however, we find no
convincing reasoning supplied by the Examiner as to how and
why the skilled artisan would apply such stacked insulator
teachings to the semiconductor device structure of Cederbaum.
The mere fact that the prior art may be modified in the manner
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