Appeal No. 1998-1850
Application No. 08/596,613
We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 5) and the Examiner's Answer (Paper
No. 8) for a statement of the examiner's position and to the Brief (Paper No. 7) and the
Reply Brief (Paper No. 9) for appellants’ position with respect to the claims which stand
rejected.
OPINION
The section 103 rejections
The examiner’s first ground of rejection, directed to claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13,
14, 22-24, 40, 44, and 45 as being unpatentable over Havemann and Tsunohara, is set
forth on pages 2 through 4 of the Final Rejection. Appellants assert that these claims
stand or fall together (Brief, page 4), and, with one noted exception which we will address
later in this decision, appellants argue the limitations of claim 1 as distinguishing over the
applied prior art. Accordingly, we select claim 1 as representative of the subject matter
with respect to the first ground of rejection. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7).
The examiner points to Havemann as disclosing the basis of the method set forth in
claim 1. (See Final Rejection, page 2.) However, the examiner finds that “Havemann
doesn’t teach implanting Ti [metal ions] into the contact hole prior to W [tungsten, which is
required by certain of the other claims] plug formation or the details of the refractory metal
underlayer or any silicide annealing of an underlying refractory metal, or an aspect ratio
greater than 4.0.” (Id.)
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