Appeal No. 2000-1005
Application 08/813,765
In comparing the process steps required in appealed claims 5 and 13 with the prior art as
applied by the examiner, we must agree with appellants that the combination of references would
not result in the claimed process encompassed by these claims and that one of ordinary skill in
this art would not have combined the teachings of these references. Appellants point out that
Babu does not address the matter of the “seeped circuit material,” that is, the “residual circuit
materials,” and the “plasma discharge to facilitate removal of the [catalyst] seed particles” does
not completely remove the remaining circuit material (specification, page 2, lines 10-16; see
brief, page 5). See Babu, col. 1, l. 51, to col. 2, l. 12. Thus, contrary to the difference with
respect to Babu noted by the examiner (answer, page 3), it is not “oxidizing the seed particles”
that is at issue, but the oxidizing of the remaining circuit material. Therefore, while Karas
teaches the removal of the “residual precious metal catalyst” without “degrading the plated
[circuit] metal” (e.g., col. 3, ll. 44-47 and 65-67, col. 4, ll. 3-6) as recognized by the examiner
(answer, page 3), such teachings even if applied to the process of Babu DOES not result in either
the required pretreatment step or the required step of oxidizing the remaining circuit materials.
The teaching of the “deactivation step” in Ott relied on by the examiner (answer, page 4) even if
correctly applied to appealed claims 5 and 13, which it is not (brief, page 6, first sentence), does
not cure this matter because the reference clearly teaches that the “deactivation step is performed
after generation of the pattern of conductive traces and before The step of chemical deposition”
(col. 2, ll. 64-66).
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