Appeal No. 2003-0385
Application No. 09/348,344
the examiner that the claimed subject matter would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art within the meaning of
35 U.S.C. § 103 in view of the Ishiwata disclosure. Accordingly,
we will sustain the examiner's rejection for essentially those
reasons expressed in the Answer. We add the following primarily
for emphasis.
There is no dispute that Ishiwata, at EXAMPLE 10,
exemplifies a sheet for holding semiconductor wafers comprising
an EVA layer having a pressure-sensitive adhesive layer on one
surface of the EVA and a high-density polyethylene layer on the
other surface of the EVA. Accordingly, since appellants'
specification describes EVA as a suitable hot-melt layer A and
polyethylene as a suitable reinforcing layer C, we must agree
with the examiner that Ishiwata exemplifies a hot-melt sheet for
holding semiconductor wafers comprising a hot-melt layer having
an adhesive layer and a reinforcing layer formed on opposite
surfaces of the hot-melt layer. As explained by the examiner,
although Ishiwata's EXAMPLE 10 has another EVA layer on the
surface of the polyethylene layer that is not in contact with the
adhesive bearing EVA layer, claim 1 on appeal, by virtue of the
"comprising" language, does not exclude the additional EVA layer
of Ishiwata.
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