Appeal No. 2004-1988
Application No. 09/733,718
Appellants also maintain that they "cannot find a teaching
or suggestion in Kim of selective deposition of any layer" (id.).
However, we subscribe to the examiner's rationale that Kim's
palladium layer 54 does not completely cover palladium film 53
since layer 54 selectively covers only the top surface of film
53, but not the side or bottom surface areas of film 53 (see
page 7 of Answer, third paragraph). We note that appellants have
not refuted the examiner's reasonable analysis.
We next consider the examiner's § 102 rejection of claims
21-23 over Abys. Appellants' argument that "in Abys there is
nothing to suggest that layer 25 covers only portions of layer 23
rather than the complete layer" (page 6 of Brief, 4th paragraph)
is not persuasive for the same reasons set forth above with
respect to the § 102 rejection over Kim.
We now turn to the examiner's § 103 rejection of claims 4,
6, 10 and 11 over Kim. Like appellants, Kim discloses that the
nickel layer can be formed of a stack consisting of a nickel
layer on the base metal, followed by a palladium/nickel layer
which, in turn, receives an additional nickel layer. While the
stack layer of Kim has thickness dimensions outside the claimed
ranges, we agree with the examiner that it would have been
obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to resort to routine
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