Appeal No. 2003-0751 Page 4
Application No. 08/995,368
In an attempt at establishing the obviousness of the claimed
method, the examiner asserts that “it is well within the ordinary
skill of the art to polish the substrate to a high degree of
smoothness” and that “it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art to determine through routine
experimentation the optimum, operable surface roughness and
thickness in the Zhang et al reference in order to create a
uniform crystallized silicon layer” (answer, page 3).
However, the examiner has not established where either of
the applied references describe or suggest a substrate polishing
step prior to the formation of an amorphous silicon film on the
surface, let alone a polishing step conducted so as to achieve
the surface roughness as here claimed as a preliminary step in
forming a semiconductor device. Polishing may be a generally
known step as examiner as acknowleged by appellant. However,
the examiner has not established that the here claimed polishing
step, conducted as part of a semiconductor manufacturing method
in the manner and to the extent as set forth in the appealed
claims would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the
art based on the evidence put forward by the examiner.
Concerning this matter, it is well settled that the mere
fact that the prior art may be modified to reflect features of
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