Appeal No. 1998-1548 Page 7
Application No. 08/660,304
From the teachings of the APA, we do not agree with the
examiner's statement (answer, page 4) that the proposed
modification would have been obvious because it was
conventional to form a groove for use as an alignment mark, as
taught by Tominaga. The fact that alignment marks formed in
grooves are within the scope and content of the prior art is
not dispositive of the issue of whether the proposed
modification would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art. In view of the teaching of the APA that the deep
recesses 32 harbor residues and other debris that are
difficult to remove and cause severe noise in the laser
alignment scan, we find that one of ordinary skill would have
been taught away from forming the alignment mark in a recess
because this would result in the alignment mark being closer
to the bottom of the deeply recessed regions which harbor the
residue and other debris.
In addition, to form the alignment mark 36 of Figure 3 of
the APA in a recess or groove, not etch the deeply recessed
regions 32 and 34, and then make a patterned opening in the
passivation layer 22 and TiN layer 20 of the APA would result
in a structure in which an access opening for fuse 40 would
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