Appeal No. 2000-2093 Page 4
Application No. 08/730,385
The Rejection Under Section 112, First Paragraph
Independent claims 5 and 13 each contain the limitation that in addition to rotating
the platen and orbiting the wafer holder, the wafer is “independently” rotated. It is the
examiner’s view that the specification and drawings fail to describe a structure for
accomplishing this independent rotation of the wafer, and therefore do not represent that
the appellant had possession of this feature of the invention at the time the application was
filed.
On page 7 of the specification it is stated that “independent rotational means 32
may be provided so as to cause its [the platen’s] rotation to be fully independent.” Element
32 is shown in the drawings schematically as being disposed about the axis of rotation of
the wafer holder with an arrow indicating that it rotates. In our opinion, one of ordinary skill
in the art would have recognized that, at the very least, this was intended to indicate an
electric motor or equivalent means for rotating the wafer holder about its axis. This
conclusion is supported by the fact that the appellant indicates it was known in the prior art
to utilize an electric motor or the like for just such a task, for he describes the wafer rotation
means in the prior art system shown in Figure 1 as “rotation causing means 3 (such as an
in-situ motor), held in position by support arm 17, [which] causes wafer holder 2 to rotate in
the direction symbolized by arrow 19” (specification, page 3). Thus, while the appellant did
not repeat such a detailed description of the like structure when describing his invention, it
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