Appeal No. 2002-0981
Application 09/005,895
Zhou discloses a mixture of solder powder and a thermally
curable adhesive composition including a fluxing agent that also
acts as an adhesive (col. 2, lines 43-45), and teaches that
“instead of solder bumps, a solder paste comprising a solder
powder and the thermally curable adhesive composition can be
employed” (col. 10, lines 41-43) and that “[d]uring the reflow
step, the fluxing agent promotes wetting of the solder to the
metallization patterns and, simultaneously, the fluxing agent
itself crosslinks to mechanically bond and encapsulate the
surfaces and their metallizations” (col. 2, lines 59-65).
The portion of Wood relied upon by the examiner is the
abstract which discloses using conductive adhesive bumps, rather
than solder bumps, on dies to provide compliant connections with
electrical connectors.
The examiner argues:
Zhou teaches that it is obvious to use a thermally
curable adhesive compound instead of solder bumps.
Wood discloses in the abstract that it is obvious to
use conductive adhesive as the thermally curable
material. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a
person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to modify MacKay by inventions of
Zhou and Wood in order to make use of thermally curable
material including conductive adhesive. [answer,
page 5]
* * *
Zhou and Wood are relied on as a [sic] secondary
references only to teach that solder paste can be
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