Appeal No. 2004-1988
Application No. 09/733,718
Appellants submit at page 4 of the Brief that the following
groups of claims stand or fall together: (a) claims 1-3, 5 and
8-11; (b) claims 12-16; (c) claims 21 and 22; (d) claim 4;
(e) claim 6; and (f) claim 23.
We have thoroughly reviewed the respective positions
advanced by appellants and the examiner. In so doing, with the
exception of the examiner's § 103 rejection of claim 8, we will
sustain the examiner's rejections for essentially those reasons
expressed in the Answer. The examiner's § 103 rejection of
claim 8 is reversed.
We consider first the examiner's § 102 rejection of claims
1-3, 5, 9 and 21-23 over Kim. Appellants contend that Figure 5
of Kim depicts a Pd-X alloy layer over a palladium layer, but
"not a layer of palladium on a palladium film," as required by
the rejected claims (page 5 of Brief, third paragraph). However,
we fully concur with the examiner that "the claim language is not
limited to unalloyed palladium [and] the claim language does not
preclude a palladium alloy layer on the palladium film"
(paragraph bridging pages 6-7 of Answer). Simply put, Kim's
palladium-containing alloy layer reads on the presently claimed
"layer of palladium." Appellants' claim language is tantamount
to an adherent layer comprising palladium.
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