Appeal No. 2004-0085
Application No. 09/876,447
clearly not a water solution of HF” (emphasis in original). The
appellants also contend after describing the invention of Koos
that “[t]he present invention, to the contrary, teaches and
claims a method for in-situ cleaning a pad and a wafer” (Breif,
page7; emphasis in original)1.
In response to these arguments, the examiner replies that
the Koos reference “clearly disclose[s] a water solution of HF”
and further quotes the reference as teaching a solution
comprising “about 20 parts by volume of ammonium fluoride
solution (80 weight percent in water) and 1 part hydrofluoric
acid (49 weight percent in water)” (see Answer, page 5).
We agree with the examiner that the Koos reference
discloses a water solution of HF. The Koos reference, at column
6, lines 63-67, discloses a buffer solution wherein the
hydrofluoric acid is 49 weight percent in water. Thus, 51
percent of the total weight of the 1 part hydrofluoric acid is
attributable to water and 49 percent of the total weight of the 1
part hydrofluoric acid is attributable to the hydrofluoric acid.
1 It should be noted that appellants make no specific arguments directed at
the rejection of the apparatus claims, but rather focus on differentiating the
method claims from the prior art. None of the arguments presented by the
appellants in the Brief are persuasive or even relevant in overcoming the
examiner’s §102(b) rejection with respect to the apparatus claims.
Significantly, the appellants do not identify and we do not find structural
elements present in the independent apparatus claim which differentiate the
claimed invention from the apparatus disclosed in Koos.
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