Appeal No. 1998-1681 Page 8
Application No. 08/523,075
ordinarily skilled artisan would have found it obvious to use
the detecting methods of Nakai and Miura “to evaluate
substrates/samples subjected to the conventional
photolithographic processing taught by Elliott . . . .” The
examiner (answer, page 5) further states that:
The teaching of Nakai et al. JP 1-73242 extends
that of the other references, including Miura JP 4-
147641, by teaching that not only [a]particulates on
the substrate, but also topological features in the
substrate can be detected using these optical means.
Like appellant, we disagree with the examiner’s view
regarding the scope of the prior art teachings and with the
examiner’s logic in attempting to piece together the cited
references so as to allegedly arrive at the subject matter of
appellant’s claims. Concerning the rejections that apply to
any of claims 26-35, we observe that the examiner has not
shown that Elliott suggests the claimed steps of etching a
substrate surface after removing the exposed photoresist
followed by irradiating the so etched surface with a laser
beam to determine whether gel substances were present or not
and Miura with regard to a lack of teaching of all of the
steps of independent claim 26.
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