Appeal No. 2001-0607
Application No. 09/244,429
and a floating gate 18 are completed with an interlayer
insulating portion 19 being interposed.
The examiner is apparently relying on Yoshimi’s second
polysilicon layer as the claimed “control gate arrangement.”
However, the second polysilicon layer of Yoshimi is a single
layer. Claim 18, on the other hand, requires that the control
gate arrangement comprises “a plurality of silicon-based layers.”
Accordingly, Yoshimi’s second polysilicon layer 15 cannot suggest
the claimed control gate arrangement. Moreover, even if we
consider resist pattern 16, together with layer 15, forming the
control gate 17, to be the claimed control gate arrangement, this
would clearly meet the limitation of the arrangement being
comprised of a “plurality of layers,” but it would not teach the
claimed range, i.e., that the control gate arrangement “has a
thickness of no greater than about 800 D” because it would be
pure speculation to assume that the resist layer thickness plus
the second polysilicon layer 15 thickness would be less than 800
D. Further still, the resist layer 16 is not a permanent
structure since it is etched away, so it has little meaning to
say that layers 15 and 16, together, form a control gate
arrangement.
Still further, even if the second polysilicon layer 15 of
-7–
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