Appeal No. 2001-2510 Page 3
Application No. 09/001,350
There is no dispute that Taki discloses the claimed system comprising "an etch
chamber having a wafer pedestal with a top surface to support a wafer and a magnet
coupled to said etch chamber and configured to provide a continuous magnetic field
directed at and in a direction normal to said top surface of said wafer pedestal" (claim 7,
lines 3-7). Appellants' principal, if not sole, argument is that Taki does not disclose an
apparatus for sputter etching but, rather, an apparatus for plasma etching.
The dispositive issue on appeal focuses upon a single paragraph in the Taki
reference, namely, the paragraph at column 16, lines 12-18, which reads as follows:
In the above-mentioned embodiments, use of etching apparatuses has
been explained. However, the present invention is applicable to a plasma
CVD apparatus or a plasma sputtering apparatus to obtain the same
effect. For instance, when SiH4 of silane type is introduced as a CVD gas,
the gas is decomposed by electric discharge so that a deposited layer of
silicon is formed on the workpiece.
According to appellants, the referenced disclosure of Taki contrasts the plasma
etching apparatus previously explained to a plasma CVD apparatus or a plasma
sputtering apparatus which deposits, not etches, a substrate. The examiner, on the
other hand, takes the position that since all the examples of Taki are directed to an
etching apparatus, the plasma sputtering apparatus cited would have been understood
by one of ordinary skill in the art to be a plasma sputtering etching apparatus. The
examiner explains that appellants have not disputed the fact that "[i]t is notoriously
known that a sputtering apparatus operates in one of only two possible manners: as a
sputter deposition apparatus or as a sputter etching apparatus" (page 5 of Answer,
penultimate paragraph). Therefore, the examiner reasons that one of ordinary skill in
the art would have understood that the sputtering apparatus described by Taki could be
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