Appeal No. 2004-0660
Application No. 10/120,116
In the first full paragraph on page 9 of the answer, the
Examiner replies to the above noted argument in the following
manner:
The examiner is not rejecting the claims
because it is not known to deposit without an
external bias, but that depositing without a
bias in a plasma system that requires a bias to
create the plasma is contradictory. The
specification as originally presented does not
recite or teach without a bias as “not applying
an external bias to the wafer”. Further, even
if one were to accept that non-biased means no
external bias to the water, claim 4 clearly
recites “a non-biased environment.” This is
broader than referring to the wafer alone.
Claim 10 recites “a non-biased high density
plasma process.” This is also broader than
referring to the wafer alone. Adding this
meaning would change the scope of the invention
as originally presented.
Under the circumstances recounted above, it is apparent
that the pivotal question raised by the Examiner’s § 112, first
paragraph, rejection is whether the artisan would consider the
“non-biased” feature recited in claims 4 and 10 and disclosed in
the Appellants’ specification as referring to the circumstance of
“not applying an external RF bias to the wafer” (brief, page 6).
While the Examiner is correct that the subject specification
does not expressly teach this circumstance, the fundamental
consideration is not the presence or absence of an express
teaching in the specification but rather how the artisan would
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