Appeal No. 2001-2568
Application No. 09/178,848
We find, however, that the examiner has not explained
the motivation to incorporate the sidewall spacers disclosed
in Liou into the masking step performing the fine lead tips
42 of Fogelson. At the bottom of page 4 of the Answer the
examiner states that it would have been obvious to use a
sidewall spacer formation method of Liou to prevent the
sidewalls of Fogelson from being etched in that one of
ordinary skill in the art would want to prevent the
sidewalls from being etched in Fogelson in order to create
cavities having dimensions smaller that the dimensions of
what can be printed with modern photolithography equipment.
However, the idea in Fogelson to form fine pitch lead tips
42 is so that one can approach a smaller die pad area 72 as
pictured in Figure 5b. The examiner has not explained how
the utilization of sidewalls of Liou would achieve this end.
In this context we agree with appellants’ comments made on
page 2 of the Reply Brief that Liou has nothing whatsoever
to do with the problem involved or its solution
(minimization of undercutting or underetching). Appellants
state that there is no two-step etch process of the type set
forth in the claims herein. Appellants state that it is
difficult to reason how two reference neither of which has
anything to do with a problem to be solved or its solution
can be properly combined. We must agree. We further note
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