Appeal No. 1998-1578
Application No. 08/543,827
However, as pointed out by the appellants (appeal brief,
page 9), Ho is silent on the relationship between the maximum
annealing temperature for the prior art RTA method and the
thickness of the titanium nitride layer that is sputtered onto
the substrate. Although the appellants have not really
disputed the examiner’s contention that “it is well known in
the art that
the annealing temperature of any coating is a function of many
‘cause effective variables’ including thickness” (appeal
brief, page 11; examiner’s answer, page 7), the examiner has
not presented any evidence to establish that the prior art RTA
method discussed in Ho would be applicable for all barrier
layer thicknesses (e.g., a titanium nitride barrier layer
thickness of 0.1 micron (1000 D) as described in Larson) or
for all structures (e.g., a capacitor as described in Larson).
Moreover, we agree with the appellants that the prior art
references, as applied by the examiner, teach away from the
appellants’ claimed invention. A prior art reference teaches
away if one of ordinary skill in the art, upon reading the
reference, would have been (i) discouraged from following the
path set out in the reference or (ii) led in a direction
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