CHEUNG et al vs. RITZDORF et al - Page 25




                Interference No. 105,113                                                                                                      

                characteristics provide an independent basis for concluding that annealing station 630 or heating                             
                unit 635 inherently include surrounding walls and thus are "chambers" in the sense of Ritzdorf's                              
                claims.  Nor are we so persuaded by the following statements about Figure 17 in the                                           
                specification: "As such, it becomes possible to hygienically separate the annealing station 630                               
                from other portions of the tool set.  Additionally, the illustrated annealing station may be                                  
                implemented as a separate module that is attached to upgrade an existing tool set."  Id. at 28, ll.                           
                15-18.  These statements leave open the possibility that the hygienic barrier is formed around the                            
                "other portions" of the tool set rather than around the annealing station or the heating unit.                                
                         Because claims 68, 70, and 73 have 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 1 written description support in                               
                Ritzdorf's involved '613 application, Cheung Preliminary Motion 2 is denied with respect to                                   
                those claims as well as with respect to dependent claims 69 and 71, which are not separately                                  
                argued in the motion and specify that the substrate cleaner is "a rinse/dry chamber."                                         
                         Claim 72, which depends on claim 70, specifies that "the substrate transfer apparatus                                
                comprises a first robot positioned to access the substrate cleaner and the electrolyte processing                             
                cell, and a second robot positioned to access the substrate cleaner and the annealing chamber."                               
                Ritzdorf would have us read the claimed first robot on one of robots 620 and the claimed second                               
                robot on robot 640 in Figure 17.  Cheung disagrees, arguing that the robot 640 does not directly                              
                access a wafer inside a rinse/dry station 610 (i.e., substrate cleaner), which instead are directly                           
                accessed only by robots 620.  Ritzdorf correctly counters that the claim does not require direct                              
                access to the substrate cleaner by the second robot.  The claimed first robot can be read on one of                           


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