Appeal No. 2003-0123
Application No. 09/383,781
Ohtani. Ohtani discloses the use of a laser beam to recover the crystallinity in
silicon that has been impaired by impurities such as implanted phosphorus ions.
(Col. 14, ll. 13 to 29).
The combination of Makita and Ohtani fails to render the subject matter of
claim 1 prima facie obvious. According to Appellant, Brief page 8, Makita is
directed to etching layers of silicon used to form a gate layer and an active region in
the circuit side of the device. Claim 1 requires the silicon that is being etched to be
over an underlying circuit side. Neither Makita or Ohtani disclose etching silicon to
provide an image path to the underlying circuit side. Neither Makita nor Ohtani is
concerned with obtaining an image of underlying circuitry. The Examiner has not
presented a reason to modify Makita to perform etching on the opposite side.
The Examiner asserts that Makita shows a gate electrode (106) below the
silicon material layer (107). (Answer, p. 8). Makita discloses the oxide layer (107)
acts as a mask that covers the gate electrode (106). Makita does not disclose etching
this oxide layer to provide an image path for the gate electrode.
The Examiner added Nishida to the combination of Makita and Ohtani to
reject the subject matter of claim 27.3 However, Nishida does not remedy the
3 Claim 27 is dependent on claim 1.
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