Appeal No. 1999-0848
Application No. 08/634,310
In making the 35 U.S.C. § 102 rejection of claim 8 based on
Jang, the Examiner points (Answer, page 6) to the illustration
in Figure 12 [sic, 11] of Jang. In response, Appellant
initially asserts that the recessed portion of the oxide layer
in Jang, identified with the label BOX, is not part of the field
oxide layer (identified with the label FOX). We do not find
such argument to be persuasive. We agree with the Examiner
(Answer, page 10) that the FOX and BOX oxide layers in Jang can
reasonably be interpreted as constituting a composite isolation
layer with the recessed BOX portion adjacent the device region.
We also find to be without merit Appellant’s contention
(Brief, page 8) that the p-n junction between the base and
collector terminates under the maximum thickness of the field
oxide, rather than under the recessed field oxide portion as
claimed. The Examiner, in addressing this feature of claim 8,
offers a differing interpretation of the disclosure of Jang. In
the Examiner’s view (Answer, page 10) the claim language
“terminates” can be construed as not only including a lateral or
horizontal relationship, as Appellant’s arguments would imply,
but also a vertical relationship. In other words, in the
Examiner’s interpretation, the p-n junction between layers 16
10
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