Appeal No. 2004-0633
Application No. 10/011,198
On page 14 of the answer, the examiner states that contrary
to appellants’ assertion that the specification gives a special
meaning to the term “integrated structure”, there does not
appear to be any explicit definition of the term “integrated
structure.” The examiner states that MPEP § 2111.01 states that
when a term is not defined in the specification, the words of a
claim must be given their plain meaning. The examiner states
that in the final rejection of Paper No. 7, it was stated that
“integrated” could be interpreted to mean “united”. The
examiner states that although no support for this definition was
provided to the appellants, the examiner states that he used a
dictionary definition. Answer, page 14. The examiner states
that in view of the plain meaning of the claimed phrase
“integrated structure”, the structure disclosed by Yu, in Figure
6, showing a metal-1 connected (i.e., united) to metal-2,
teaches this aspect of the claimed subject matter. Answer, page
14.
Hence, the meaning of the phrase “integrated structure” is
in dispute.
We have carefully reviewed the entire specification in an
effort to ascertain the meaning of the phrase an “integrated
structure”, as recited claim 37. This review is summarized
below.
We refer to paragraphs [0022], [0026], [0031] of
appellants’ specification. These paragraphs indicate that when
an “integral” plug is formed, such is formed in a manner as
described, for example, in making conductive structures 120 and
122 as shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5. That is, a conductive
material is deposited in a trench, as shown in Figure 4, and the
resulting conductive structures 120, 122 are formed as shown in
4
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