Appeal No. 2003-1299
Application No. 09/443,443
2001). Thus, the burden is on the examiner to identify concrete
evidence in the record to support his conclusion that it would
have been obvious to modify the teachings of the cited
references to achieve the claimed invention. In re Kotzab, 217
F.3d 1365, 1370, 55 USPQ2d 1313, 1316-17 (Fed. Cir. 2000). In
the present case, the examiner has simply failed to meet this
burden in view of the terse reasoning provided by the examiner,
mentioned above. For example, the examiner does not explain why
one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to
incorporate a barrier layer in the device of the combination of
Freeman and Lien, in view of the teachings of White.
We therefore reverse this rejection.
IV. The rejection of claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over
Freeman and Lien in view of Hwang
Claim 11 is dependent upon claim 1. Claim 1 was rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination
of Freeman and Lien, and we affirmed the rejection with respect
to claim 1. Claim 11 further requires that conductive capping
layer includes a material selected from the group consisting of
nickel and palladium. Appellants do not contest the rejection
of claim 11 (i.e., appellants do not provide separate arguments
for claim 11). We therefore affirm this rejection.
V. Conclusion
We affirm the rejection of claims 1-4, 10, 24-27, and 32
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Freeman and
Lien. However, we reverse this rejection with respect to claims
5 and 30.
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