Appeal No. 2002-1823
Application 09/575,551
(process tube 1). To cure these deficiencies in Iwai, the
examiner turns to Kawabata.
Kawabata discloses a method of transferring semiconductor
wafers W from a horizontal orientation in one box type carrier C1
to a horizontal orientation in another box type carrier C2.
During the transfer, the carriers are pivoted such that the
wafers are removed from the first carrier, transported between
the two carriers and placed into the second carrier, all while in
a vertical orientation.
In proposing to combine Iwai and Kawabata to reject the
appealed claims, the examiner submits that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
to have modified the apparatus of Iwai et al by moving
the article from a horizontal to a vertical orientation
as the engagement head transferred the article from the
docking station to the shelf, as Kawabata teaches that
moving wafers in a carrier from a horizontal to a
vertical orientation prior to their processing is well
known in the art, as certain processes are desirably
performed on wafers in a vertical orientation [final
rejection, pages 4 and 5].
The Iwai apparatus, however, is a so-called upright heat
treatment apparatus that utilizes an upright cylindrical process
tube 1 adapted to receive an upright wafer boat 6 carrying a
stack of horizontally oriented wafers (see column 1, lines 23
through 44; and column 7, line 31, through column 8, line 12).
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