Appeal No. 2001-1419
Application No. 09/199,960
the gate electrode is as a result of an incidental illustration
in Figure 4 in Appellants’ drawings. Given this lack of
evidentiary support by Appellants, we find that Appellants’
arguments are not sufficient to overcome the presumption of
obviousness to the skilled artisan of placing the top of the
electrode gate so that it is disposed only over the LDD regions
as claimed.
We also find to be unpersuasive Appellants’ contention
(Brief, pages 4 and 5) that the Examiner’s proposed modification
of Chatterjee, in which the source/drain regions are silicided as
taught by Rodder and Wolf, would electrically short out the gate
electrode and thereby render Chatterjee unsatisfactory for its
intended purpose. It is apparent to us from reviewing the
Examiner’s analysis that the Examiner is not suggesting the
bodily incorporation of the silicided structures of Rodder and
Wolf into the device of Chatterjee. Rather, it is the disclosed
advantages of utilizing an elevated silicided source/drain
structure that is being relied upon as a suggestion for the
proposed combination. “The test for obviousness is not whether
the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated
into the structure of the primary reference . . . . Rather, the
test is what the combined teachings of those references would
9
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007