Appeal No. 2000-1483
Application No. 08/851,608
claimed spatial relationship and that this is neither disclosed
nor suggested by the applied references.
The examiner never suggested that this claim limitation was
disclosed or suggested by Tonnel. Rather, the examiner is
alleging that since the structure is shown by Tonnel or would
have been suggested by the combination of Tonnel and Ueda, the
resulting structure, being the same as that claimed, would have
resulted in the claimed limitation regarding the breakdown in the
trench being “inherent” in that structure.
In our view, the examiner makes a valid point in asserting
that a newly discovered property inherently possessed by things
in the prior art does not cause a claim drawn to those things to
distinguish over the prior art. However, in the instant case,
one cannot say that the instant claimed structure and the
structure resulting from the combination of Tonnel and Ueda are
identical.
While the broad spatial relationship between dtr, dmax, and d
may be shown by Tonnel, in Figures 10-12, it is not merely that
dtr be less than dmax and greater than d. This much is shown by
Tonnel. Claim 17 also requires that these relationships be such
that "breakdown in said trench DMOS transistor occurs across said
epitaxial layer at a position closer to said first location than
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