Appeal No. 2000-1164 Page 10
Application No. 08/899,176
solution in the cleaning process. The examiner urges that “[i]t
is inherent that the disclosed aqueous solutions are prepared by
dissolving the chemicals or their solutions in the pure deionized
water suitable for use in the semiconductor industry” (answer,
page 6).
Appellants (brief, page 7), on the other hand, have argued
that Yamashita “does not teach the addition of ions into
deionized water . . .” (emphasis added).
Thus, a central question before us is whether the examiner’s
assertion of inherency is reasonable. We answer that question in
the negative since the examiner has not provided a sufficient
basis in fact and/or technical reasoning to reasonably support
the determination that the allegedly inherent use of deionized
water in Yamashita necessarily occurs in their photo-mask
cleaning process. It is noted that a photo-mask, as cleaned in
Yamashita, is used as a light exposure mask during the
manufacture of a semiconductor device (Yamashita, column 1, lines
6-11), the photo-mask not being a part of the wafer used in
making the semiconductor device. It is the cleaning of such a
wafer that is the subject of the present application.
Accordingly, we shall reverse the examiner’s § 102 rejection of
claims 1-6, 8, 9 and 15 over Yamashita.
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