Appeal No. 2000-1927
Application No. 08/990,754
(figures 24-35) of Murakami...is the only portion which was used to reject the claimed
invention.” (Answer at 8.)
However, we agree with appellants that a reference must be considered in its
entirety, including portions that may teach away from the claimed invention. “A
reference may be said to teach away when a person of ordinary skill, upon [examining]
the reference, would be discouraged from following the path set out in the reference, or
would be led in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the applicant.”
Para-Ordnance Mfg. v. SGS Importers Int’l, 73 F.3d 1085, 1090, 37 USPQ2d 1237,
1241 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (quoting In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553, 31 USPQ2d 1130, 1131
(Fed. Cir. 1994)).
Here, Murakami describes prior art efforts to overcome crystal defects 50 in the
prior art structure of Figure 24. Col. 3, ll. 5-16. The reference goes on to describe a
way to remedy the defects, by inclusion of a portion 313 (Fig. 35) to prevent leakage
current due to crystal defects. Col. 3, ll. 23-59. However, the reference warns that the
construction of Figure 35 has distinct disadvantages. Col. 3, l. 60 - col. 4, l. 4.
Murakami’s purported improvement over the prior art includes a p-type impurity
diffusion region 13 formed between isolating oxide film 5 and n-type source/drain region
11. Col. 7, ll. 26-60; Fig. 1.
We thus conclude that Murakami would not have suggested modifying the
structure of Figure 24 by adding an n-type impurity region (as shown in Fig. 35), and
would have discouraged the artisan from such endeavor. Further, we agree with
-4-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007