Appeal No. 2003-0636
Application No. 09/599,125
In the rejection of the appealed claims, the examiner relies
upon the following references:
Mallory, Jr. (Mallory) 4,232,060 Nov. 04, 1980
Kobayashi et al. (Kobayashi) 4,368,223 Jan. 11, 1983
Reynolds 5,904,827 May 18, 1999
Sergey D. Lopatin et al. (Lopatin), "Thin Electroless Barrier for
Copper Films," 3508 MULTILEVEL INTERCONNECT TECHNOLOGY II,
Proceedings of SPIE 65-77 (September 23-24, 1998)
As is quite evident from illustrative claim 1, appellants'
claimed invention is directed to cleaning and electrolessly
plating a planarized substrate with one solution. According to
appellants, "the electroless plating solution serves a dual
purpose of substrate cleaning as well as formation of a metal-
containing layer" (page 2 of principal brief, last paragraph).
Appealed claims 1-4, 7, 10-13 and 16-19 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Lopatin. The appealed
claims also stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as follows:
(a) claims 1-4, 7, 10-13, 16-19 and 25 over Mallory in view
of Lopatin;
(b) claims 5, 8, 14 and 26-31 over Mallory in view of
Lopatin and Reynolds;
(c) claims 6 and 15 over Mallory in view of Lopatin and
Kobayashi.
We have thoroughly reviewed the respective positions
advanced by appellants and the examiner. In so doing, we agree
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