Appeal No. 2004-0681
Application No. 09/899,743
Claims 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as
being anticipated by Dixit.1
We refer to the brief and to the answer for a complete
discussion of the contrary viewpoints expressed by the appellants
and by the examiner concerning this rejection.
OPINION
For the reasons which follow, we will sustain this
rejection.
As correctly indicated by the examiner, Dixit discloses an
integrated circuit dielectric method which includes forming an
opening in a dielectric layer such as xerogel and exposing this
opening to a plasma such as a hydrogen-containing plasma. It is
the examiner’s position that, since the appellants disclose their
claimed porous dielectric layer to be xerogel which has
hydrophobic pore surfaces, the corresponding xerogel of Dixit
necessarily would have hydrophobic pore surfaces. Similarly, the
examiner urges that the here claimed plasma exposure corresponds
to patentee’s plasma exposure (i.e., as revealed by a comparison
of appellants’ disclosure on pages 13 and 14 of the specification
1 On page 2 of the brief, the appellants indicate that the
appealed claims will stand or fall together. Accordingly, in
assessing the merits of the above noted rejection, we will focus
on independent claim 6 with which dependent claim 7 will stand or
fall. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)(2002).
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007