Appeal No. 2003-0270
Application 09/087,234
a large contact area for deposited layers. See
Figure 6 illustrating the continuous surface of the
shell with collapsed pores near the surface. To form
the shell, exposes [sic] the xerogel surface to ion
beam bombardment. Typically, an ion implanter using an
argon ion beam with a dose of 1016/cm2 and an ion energy
of 20 keV; alternatively, an argon plasma could provide
the ion bombardment. The hard shell will be about 20-
50 nm thick. The hard shell provides good surface
adhesion for plasma-enhanced deposited oxide.
In effect, if the average pore diameter were D,
then the portion of the xerogel within a distance of 2D
of the surface would have a porosity (ratio of total
pore volume to total volume) of much less than half of
the porosity away from the surface.
The first paragraph discloses that the collapsed pores can be
formed by exposing the surface to an ion beam, and figure 6 shows
that the collapsed pores can have the same shape as the
underlying pores but are smaller. The second paragraph discloses
that the porosity at a distance within 2D of the surface is much
less than half the porosity away from the surface. Hence, the
broadest reasonable interpretation of “collapsed pores” in
claim 4 in view of the specification is: pores within a distance
2D of the surface which are smaller than pores farther from the
surface such that the layer containing those smaller pores has a
porosity which is less than about half the porosity at any chosen
distance away from the surface.
-4-4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007