Appeal No. 2001-2146
Application No. 09/270,588
The majority seems to indicate that Liao teaches every feature recited in claim 1,
except that they are unsure whether “the second exposure of layer 115, figure 2E[,] meets
the requirements of ‘photo exposing [sic, photoexposing] the process patterned photoresist
layer’ as required by claim 1.” See the decision, pages 5, 7 and 8 . I find that the so-called
“the second exposure of layer 115" referred by the majority is a conventional anisotropic
plasma etching procedure, not the claimed photoexposing step. See Liao, column 3, line 40
to column 5, line 34. To the extent that the majority relies on the deep UV exposure step
referred to at column 6 of Liao, I find that it does not involve photoexposing the processed
patterned positive photoresist layer from the claimed earlier processing and patterning steps
as required by claim 1. As such, there is no reason to remand this application to the examiner
to reconsider the content of Liao which has been already considered by the examiner.
Indeed, recognizing this deficiency in Liao, the examiner relies on the disclosure of
Wright. As correctly determined by the majority, however, there simply is no suggestion or
motivation to employ the solvent free photoexposing method described in Wright in the
solvent employing process of Liao. Even if the teachings in Wright and Liao are properly
combinable as suggested by the examiner, such a combination would have led one of ordinary
skill in the art away from the claimed invention. Specifically, the solvent-free method
proposed by Wright would have taught away one of ordinary skill art from the following
claimed steps:
11
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007