Appeal No. 1998-0970 Application 07/995,325 Claims 12-15, 20, 22, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Tsunashima taken in combination with Nickl, Allman, Gong, and Griswold. We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 22) and the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 32) (pages referred to as "EA__") for a statement of the Examiner's position, and to the corrected Appeal Brief (Paper No. 36) (pages referred to as "Br__") for Appellants' arguments thereagainst. OPINION It is noted that Gong is apparently applied only to the rejection of claims 13 and 15. Tsunashima discloses a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device. Figure 4 of Tsunashima discloses forming an impurity diffusion region 113 (claim 12, step a) and forming an insulating film 114 covering at least part of the impurity diffusion region (claim 12, step b). Tsunashima does not expressly disclose forming a photoresist film (claim 12, step c), patterning the photoresist film (claim 12, step d), etching the insulating film (claim 12, step e), and then removing the pattern photoresist film (claim 12, step f). - 4 -Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007