Appeal No. 2002-1260 Page 4
Application No. 09/137,179
Regarding the examiner’s § 102(a) rejections, appellants
have argued that Liaw and Liao each do not teach an aqueous
composition having the concentration as here claimed. On the
other hand, the examiner makes reference to an example one liter
aqueous solution at pages 4 and 5 of the answer in asserting that
each of Liao and Liaw represent anticipatory disclosures of the
subject matter recited in the rejected claims. However, the
examiner has not pointed out, nor can we find, where a disclosure
of such a one liter solution is located in Liao or Liaw. In this
regard, claim 1 requires that a maximum of 15 weight percent
sulfuric acid can be present in the aqueous solution. However,
the examiner has not established how the component ratios
described in Liao or Liaw necessarily describe a solution with a
sulfuric acid concentration as required by the appealed claims.
With regard to the examiner’s § 103(a) rejections of
dependent claim 6 over the same references, the examiner
additionally asserts that one of ordinary skill in the art would
have arrived at the claimed composition by optimization of the
compositions of either Liao or Liaw. However, we note that Liao
was concerned with formulating a composition for removing
residues of dry etching of non-metallic compounds of silica or
silicon. Liaw was similarly concerned with formulating a similar
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