Appeal No. 2001-0014 Page 6
Application No. 09/070,899
standing or falling together as a group and we will treat
claim 6 as the representative claim of that group.
The appellant argues that the applied references do not
teach or suggest the recited features related to a chip that
is bonded face down upon a ceramic substrate so as to
hermetically seal the enclosure formed by the chip and the
substrate. In particular, the appellant asserts that
hermetically sealing of an electrical feedthrough between the
substrate and a chip, as disclosed by Chen, requires high
temperature bonding that would severely degrade the diode
junctions in the claimed structure due to unwanted diffusion
(brief, p. 7). Furthermore, the appellant argues that the
insulating bonding layer of Chen results in a seal that itself
is electrically insulating and houses feedthroughs whereas the
hermetic seal of the claimed invention is made of electrically
conductive solder and cannot house
feedthroughs (brief, p. 8). The appellant concludes that,
absent appellant’s own disclosure, there are no reasons for
combining teachings from different references to arrive at the
appellant’s invention that removes the need for a separate
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