Appeal No. 1998-2671
Application No. 08/480,543
The rejection of claims 3, 9-11, 13, and 18 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Schilling
in view of Wolf.
In this obviousness rejection, the Examiner uses an
identical rationale as that applied to the proposed Schilling-
Tracy combination discussed supra. Instead of relying on Tracy
for the teaching of increased deposition temperature for improved
metal coverage, the Examiner relies on Wolf to provide the
identical teaching (Answer, page 7).
Appellants, for their part, essentially repeat their
arguments made with regard to the combination of Schilling and
Tracy, which arguments our previous discussion found to be
unpersuasive. Our review of the Wolf reference reveals a clear
teaching (e.g. page 369) of increasing the metal deposition
temperature in order to provide improved step coverage. Further,
the evidence of record indicates that alloying will occur between
deposited metal and a refractory metal layer at the deposition
temperature, i.e. ›250° C, suggested by Wolf. Accordingly, the
Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of representative dependent
claim 11 based on the combination of Schilling and Wolf, as well
as dependent claims 12 and 13 which fall with claim 11, is
sustained.
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