Appeal No. 2000-0160
Application 08/595,150
enabling disclosure under § 112, first paragraph. See Mayhew,
527 F.2d at 1233, 188 USPQ at 358. Claim 22 recites the inert
coating; therefore, claims 22, 23, and 32 are not rejected.
Claims 19-24, 26, 28, 30, 32, and 34 are rejected under
§ 112, second paragraph, as failing to particularly point out and
distinctly claim the subject matter which Appellant regards as
his invention. First, it is clear from Appellant's brief that
Appellant regards his invention as including the inert coating.
Absent an inert electrically conducting coating, there is nothing
to protect the exposed metal surfaces from damaging interactions
with chemicals that lead to the problem of exploding vias as
argued by Appellant (Br5-8). The claims are properly rejected
under § 112, second paragraph, as failing to distinctly claim
what Appellant in his brief insists is his invention.
Second, the absence of the inert coating in the claims
causes a potential indefiniteness problem. Since there is no
chemically inert electrically conducting coating 34 claimed as
part of the patterned metal layers, the coating 34 and metal
interconnect line 6 together are a "patterned metal layer" which
has a top surface and edge surfaces and the via bottom end
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