Appeal No. 1997-0547
Application No. 08/020,443
490.
Appealed claims 1, 2, 5 through 14 and 16 through 23
stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Katsumata in view of Hurle.
Similarly, appealed claims 3, 4, and 15 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Katsumata in view
of Hurle further in view of Cope.
We do not sustain the stated rejections.
The subject matter on appeal is directed to a method of
controlling the diameter of a growing crystal which is an
improvement of prior art Czochralski crystal pulling processes
of the type disclosed by the examiner's "primary reference" to
Katsumata. Uniform crystal growth diameter has been achieved
in such prior art processes by weighing the crystal with a
load cell during growth. The load cell feeds a signal back to
a computer for controlling parameters such as heat input and
pull speed. The crystal weight or some function thereof is
compared with an expected value and any error which is
detected is used to correct the power input and/or pull speed.
In the first appeal of this subject matter (Appeal Number
3
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