Appeal No. 2000-0465
Application 08/826,110
As pointed out by our reviewing court, we must first determine the scope of the
claim. “[T]he name of the game is the claim.” In re Hiniker Co., 150 F.3d 1362, 1369,
47 USPQ2d 1523, 1529 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
We note that Appellant’s claim 1 recites an “ohmic contact compris[ing]
Pd/barrier/Au layers, with said palladium layer being in contact with said base.”
(emphasis added). The use of the Appellant’s claim language, “barrier,” reasonably
allows for the reading of claim 1 language as requiring a barrier disposed between
palladium and gold layers forming an ohmic contact on a semiconductor device.
Moreover, when interpreting a claim, words of the claim are generally given their
ordinary and accustomed meaning, unless it appears from the specification or the file
history that they were used differently by the inventor. Carroll Touch, Inc. v. Electro
Mechanical Sys., Inc., 15 F.3d 1573, 1577, 27 USPQ2d 1836, 1840 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Although an inventor is indeed free to define the specific terms used to describe his or her
invention, this must be done with reasonable clarity, deliberateness, and precision. In re
Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480, 31 USPQ2d 1671, 1674 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Our reviewing
court states in In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989)
that “claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow.”
We note that the Appellant’s specification states that “the function of the barrier
layer is to act as a barrier to gold atoms and to prevent diffusion thereof into the channel
semiconductor device, especially the lateral diffusion in an HFET between source and
drain underneath the gate.” Specification, page 6, lines 1-4. Thus, we find that the
barrier layer is a material layer that inhibits diffusion of gold at operating conditions.
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