Appeal No. 2001-1512 4
Application No. 09/273,541
October 4, 2000) and the reply brief (Paper No. 28, filed January
2, 2001) for Appellant’s arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
To address the language of independent claim 4, the Examiner
relies on the teachings of Tezuka (col. 2, lines 35-44)
describing the delivery of a heat transfer gas to the interface
between the work [substrate] and the electrostatic chuck (final
rejection, page 2).2 The Examiner reasons that while Tezuka does
not specify closing the exhaust valve, the reference teaches
controlling of the cooling gas pressure by observing gage 19 and
manipulating valves 16 and 17 (col. 4, lines 44-47) and
therefore, would operate if the exhaust valve is closed (id.).
The Examiner also points to the teaching of Tezuka related to
control of flow rate and concludes that the “correspondence of
the flow rate to a leakage rate is inherent in this measurement
since the flow rate is claimed to be controlled only by pressure
measurement methods” (final rejection, page 3).
The Examiner further relies on White for teaching the
assessment of a state of the gap between the substrate and the
chuck by monitoring a different effect other than comparing the
2 Paper No. 15, mailed April 4, 2000.
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