Appeal No. 1999-2683
Application 08/754,564
that the product would have been obvious over the combination
of Tsu, Kalnitsky, and the APA (Final Rejection, pp. 4-5).
We refer to the final rejection (Paper No. 11) (pages
referred to as "FR__") and the examiner's answer (Paper
No. 21) (pages referred to as "EA__") for a statement of the
Examiner's position, and to the appeal brief (Paper No. 20)
for a statement of Appellant's arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
Arguments
The Examiner finds that oxide layer 24 in Tsu is
inherently an etch stop layer for the overlying spin-on-glass
(SOG) layer 26 and concludes that it would have been obvious
to substitute a silicon nitride etch stop layer as taught by
Kalnitsky.
Appellant argues that CVD oxide layer 24 in Tsu is not
stated to be an etch stop layer and could not be effectively
used as an etch stop layer. Appellant provides a declaration
by the inventor Sunil Mehta under 37 CFR § 1.132 (Paper
No. 10) which states (p. 2):
4. To the best of my knowledge on information and
belief, the industry accepted definition of an etch stop
layer is a layer of material underlying the material
being etched and having a lower etch rate than the
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