Appeal No. 2003-2097
Application No. 09/247,926 Page 6
(answer, pages 4 and 5) that APA does not teach the step of
etching the remaining second portion for exposing the second
lower level conductive line to a second contact hole. To
overcome these deficiencies in APA, the examiner turns to Sandhu
for a teaching of performing a first etch of inter-level
insulating layer 42 while leaving the second lower conductive
line covered with a second portion of the inter-layer insulating
layer. The examiner adds (id.) that the remaining portion of the
insulating layer protects the second lower conductive line from
further processing to the first lower conductive line. Then, the
remaining portion of the insulating layer 42 over the second
conductive line is removed by etching the remaining second
portion of the inter-layer film 42. The examiner takes the
position (id.) that “[i]t would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to
modify the method of APA by partially etching through the
dielectric layer 6 of APA (42 in Sandhu) over the ‘second lower-
level conductive line’ 5a of APA (16a, 16b in Sandhu), as taught
in Sandhu, because leaving the second lower conductive lines
unexposed would prevent the potential harmful effects occurring
during additional processing of the first lower conductive lines
43, 45 of APA (36 in Sandhu), as taught in Sandhu.”
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