Appeal No. 1999-0887
Application No. 08/702,074
us, that the collective evidence relied upon and the level of
skill in the particular art would not have suggested to one of
ordinary skill in the art the obviousness of the invention as
set forth in claims 1, 4, 5, and 9-36. Accordingly, we
reverse.
With respect to independent claims 1 and 21, the
Examiner, as the initial basis for an obviousness rejection,
proposes to modify the semiconductor device of Temple which
describes a high breakdown voltage device having a junction
extension region adjacent to a p-n junction termination.
According to the Examiner, Temple discloses the claimed
invention except that the reference “ . . . does not teach the
dopant in the junction region to have an acceptor or donor
level greater than 0.1 eV in silicon.” (Final Office action,
page 3). To address this deficiency, the Examiner turns to
Moore which discloses the doping of silicon with cobalt which
exhibits an energy level greater than 0.1 eV in silicon. In
the Examiner’s analysis, “[i]t would have been obvious to a
person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention
to use cobalt as either a donor or acceptor dopant as taught
by Moore et al. in the device of Temple to increase said
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