Appeal No. 1998-0088
Application 08/622,327
lie under Fujii's tunneling layer 14, as in necessary for Fujii to
inherently satisfy claim 15.8
For the foregoing reasons, we are reversing the § 102(b)
rejection of claims 15 and 16 for anticipation by Fujii.
We are reversing the § 103 rejection of claims 15 and 16 based
on Fujii because the examiner has not explained how or why it would
have been obvious to modify Fujii's device in order to satisfy the
requirement that the nitrided oxide layer be at least at the drain
avalanche hot carrier injection region.
This decision contains a new ground of rejection pursuant to
37 CFR § 1.196(b) (amended effective Dec. 1, 1997, by final rule
notice, 62 Fed. Reg. 53,131, 53,197 (Oct. 10, 1997), 1203 Off. Gaz.
Pat. & Trademark Office 63, 122 (Oct. 21, 1997)). 37 CFR
8 Min-Liang Chen et al., "Suppression of Hot-Carrier Effects in
Submicrometer CMOS Technology," 35 IEEE Transactions on Electron
Devices 2210-20 (December 1998), of which a copy was provided with
the Brief, shows (at 2211, Fig. 1) that the drain avalanche hot
carrier injection region is located within the channel region and
adjacent to the lightly doped (N-) drain region when the drain
includes a lightly doped (N-)region and a heavily doped (N+) region,
which is not the case in Fujii's device. The positional relationship
shown in Chen et al. also appears in appellants' Figure 20 (Spec. at
29, l. 21 to p. 30, l. 3).
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