Appeal No. 2004-0651
Application No. 09/898,082
conductive and that the bonding member be made of “metal or an
alloy.” Accordingly, we find that Kawai does show the claimed
protrusion and we will sustain the rejection of claim 20, and, in
accordance with appellant’s grouping at page 1 of the reply
brief, the rejection of claims 22 and 24, under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b).
With regard to claim 21, this claim requires the second
conductive material filling in the second insulating layer to
protrude above a surface of the second insulating layer.
Appellant argues that “it cannot be said that Sn bonding
members 5 meet this aspect of claim 20, because Sn bonding
members 5 are not the material filling a contact hole as required
by claim 21 (Sn and Cu are different materials)” (principal
brief-page 8).
Since appellant is making exactly the same argument for
claim 21 as he did for claim 20, and we have already found that
claim 20 was properly rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b),
rejecting appellant’s argument in this regard, we will sustain
the rejection of claim 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) for the same
reasons.
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