Appeal No. 2001-1559
Application No. 09/237,174
hearing and brief, pages 10 & 11). Additionally, Appellants
assert that a person skilled in the art would not have arrived at
the claimed growth rate and the ratio of the width of the deep
region to the height of the shallow region through calculations
or routine experimentation (brief, page 11).
In response to Appellants’ arguments, the Examiner asserts
that Sasaki teaches filling the isolation trench with ozone-
activated CVD (answer, page 6). However, the Examiner does not
point to any particular part of the reference for such teachings.
With respect to the growth rate of the isolation material and the
trench width to step height ratio, the Examiner argues that the
claim does not recite the ratio and merely describes the material
(id.). The Examiner further asserts that by selecting the CVD
process for a TEOS-based chemistry, Bohr teaches the ozone-
activated CVD process (answer, page 7).
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the Examiner
bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of
obviousness. See In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d
1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993). The conclusion that the claimed
subject matter is obvious must be supported by evidence, as shown
by some objective teaching in the prior art or by knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art that
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