invention can serve to improve properties and chemical composition of other
materials as well . . . .
Application 09/128,143, Specification, p. 15, ll. 13-17 (emphasis added).
C.2.
Each of the original claims of the 143 Specification required either post-treatment with high
energy ions or with a biased plasma. Application 09/128,143, Specification, pp. 18-19. When the
143 Application was filed it included 12 claims. Application 09/128,143, Specification, pp. 18-19.
Claims 1, 2 and 9 were the only independent claims. Application 09/128,143, Specification, pp. 18-
19. Claim 1 was directed to the method of improving the properties of the film deposited on a substrate
by “bombarding the films with energetic ions.” Application 09/128,143, Specification, p. 18, ll, 1-3.
Claim 2 required “exposing the film to a plasma of a precursor gas while applying a bias voltage to
said substrate.” Application 09/128,143, Specification, p. 18, ll. 5-9. Claim 9 was specific to TiN
films and required “treating the film by applying a bias voltage to the substrate in the presence of a
plasma of a precursor gas.” Application 09/128,143, Specification, p. 19, ll. 11-15.
D.
The 143 Specification, as a whole, clearly describes the goal of the invention to be
significantly reducing the resistivity and increasing the stability of CVD films. The written
description of the 143 Specification clearly and unequivocally describes the inventive concept which
achieves this goal. It is the treatment of the films with high energy ions such as those resulting from
exposing the films to a plasma while applying a bias voltage. The only described process said to have
significantly lowered resistivity and increased stability exposes the film to a plasma while applying
a bias voltage. The 143 Specification repeatedly says the process including post-treatment with a
plasma while applying a bias voltage is “in accordance to the process of the present invention.” None
of the other processes disclosed achieves this goal of reducing resistivity and increasing stability of
CVD films. While the 143 Specification seems to say that other sources of high energy ions besides
a biased plasma may be used, it does not say that post-treatment with a plasma without the application
of a bias voltage or high energy ions is an optional technique of achieving the goals of the invention.
Indeed, the only description of post treating the films with a plasma without the application of high
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