Appeal No. 2003-1092
Application No. 09/692,730
adequately illustrated by independent claim 2 which reads as
follows:
2. A chemical-mechanical polishing slurry for use in
removing a barrier layer during the fabrication of a damascene
structure comprising an amount of an agent selected from the group
consisting of lysine and arginine sufficient to suppress the rate
at which an underlying silicon-containing dielectric layer is
removed by at least about 50% as compared to the rate at which said
underlying silicon-containing dielectric layer would be removed if
said agent was not present in said slurry.
The references set forth below are relied upon by the Examiner
as evidence of obviousness:
Grumbine et al. (Grumbine) 6,136,711 Oct. 24, 2000
(filed May 29, 1998)
Kaisaki et al. (Kaisaki) 6,194,317 Feb. 27, 2001
(effective filing date Jun 24, 1998)
All of the claims on appeal stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kaisaki in view of Grumbine.
On page 4 of the answer, the Examiner expresses his obviousness
conclusion in the following manner:
Since Kaisaki is concerned with a
polishing slurry having lysine to polish TiN
layer while suppressing the removal rate of the
underlying dielectric layer, one skilled in the
art would have found it obvious to modify
Kaisaki slurry by using a sufficient amount of
lysine in a slurry as taught by Grumbine
especially because Grumbine states that his CMP
exhibits desirable low polishing rate towards
the dielectric insulating layer (col 9, lines
49-51).
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