Appeal No. 2004-1741
Application No. 09/466,440
Claims 1-26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 for
obviousness in view of Cheung taken in combination with Kun-Yu.
Claims 1, 10 and 24 also are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
based upon Cheung alone.2
Based upon the record before us, we agree with the appellant
that the examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case of
obviousness. Accordingly, we reverse the rejections applied by the
examiner.
The examiner’s case fails on two accounts. First of all, the
process gas employed by Cheung does not include all four of the
gases recited in appellant’s claims. The claims require a
combination of SF6, HBr, He, and a chlorine containing gas; whereas,
at most, Cheung employs a combination of SF6, HBr, and an oxygen
containing gas to etch a silicide layer. While Cheung (Table III;
Example 14) does refer to He and chlorine, those two gases are
mentioned, along with HBr, only with reference to a second
“overetch” step for etching an underlying polysilicon layer below
the silicide layer.
2A previous rejection under the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C.
§ 112 is no longer maintained in the examiner’s answer and,
therefore, presumably has been withdrawn by the examiner.
3
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