Appeal No. 2005-1098
Application No. 10/319,149
rewritten in independent form including all the limitations of
the base claim and any intervening claims (final Office action
dated Jan. 22, 2004, page 3; Brief, page 2; Answer, page 7).1 We
have jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134.
According to appellants, the invention is directed to a
method for reducing light induced corrosion and re-deposition of
metal features of semiconductor material by incorporating a
photon-blocking layer below the PMD layer to limit the exposure
of the semiconductor material to light having energy greater than
or equal to a band gap energy of the material (Brief, page 3).
Representative independent claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. A method for reducing light induced corrosion and re-
deposition of metal features of semiconductor material
comprising:
limiting exposure of said semiconductor material to light
having energy greater than or equal to a band gap energy of the
semiconductor material by incorporating a photon-blocking layer
in said semiconductor material below the PMD layer.
The examiner relies upon the following references as
evidence of obviousness:
Pernyeszi et al. (Pernyeszi) 5,031,017 Jul. 09, 1991
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1 We fail to understand how the examiner could indicate that
claims 3-7 and 12 are allowable when there is a pending rejection
of claims 1-12 under the second paragraph of section 112 (Answer,
page 3). However, this issue becomes moot in view of our
decision infra in this appeal.
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