Appeal No. 2000-1004
Application 08/743,628
(filed Jul. 26, 1995)
Cleeves 5,710,061 Jan. 20, 1998
(effective filing date Jan. 10, 1994)
The examiner has advanced the following grounds of rejection on appeal:
claims 9 through 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Abernathey;
claims 1, 2 and 22 through 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over Abernathey in view of Tsukamoto; and
claim 15 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Abernathey in
view of Cleeves.
Appellants, on pages 4-5 of the brief, group the claims into eight grouping, and present
argument with respect to each grouping of claims. However, the argument with respect to each
of several groups merely refers to arguments made with respect to another group or otherwise
merely point out features contained in the claim(s) of the grouping, which does not constitute an
argument directed to the patentability of the claim(s) over the applied prior art with specificity.
We further note that appellants have still further presented argument with respect to different
groupings of claims in the reply brief. Thus, we decide this appeal based on appealed claims 1, 9
and 15 as respectively representative of the three grounds of rejection. 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)
(1999).
We affirm the grounds of rejection based on Abernathey alone and in view of Cleeves
and reverse the ground of rejection based on Abernathey in view of Tsukamoto.
Rather than reiterate the respective positions advanced by the examiner and appellants,
we refer to the examiner’s answer and to appellants’ brief and reply brief for a complete
exposition thereof.
Opinion
We have carefully reviewed the record on this appeal and based thereon find ourselves in
agreement with the examiner that the claimed process for patterning a layer formed on a
substrate encompassed by appealed claim 9 would have been obvious over the teachings of
Abernathey to one of ordinary skill in this art at the time the claimed invention was made.
As pointed out by the examiner (answer, page 4), Abernathey discloses a process for
patterning a layer that includes the deposition of a barrier or capping layer of silicon or silicon
dioxide over an antireflective layer of titanium nitride (col. 2, line 36, to col. 3, line 6), from
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