Appeal No. 2005-0239
Application No. 10/145,421
on the combined disclosures of Choi and Lin. The examiner finds,
and the appellants do not dispute, that Choi teaches the claimed
method, except for the claimed annealing step. Compare the
Answer, pages 3-4 with the Brief and the Reply Brief in their
entirety. Indeed, as acknowledged by the examiner, Choi is
silent as to employing an annealing step after its etching step.
See the Answer, pages 3-4.
To account for this deficiency, the examiner relies on Lin
to show the claimed annealing step. See the Answer, page 4. The
examiner finds, and the appellants do not dispute, that Lin’s
teaching includes annealing after etching in “a similar method of
forming CMOS devices”. Compare the Answer, page 4 with the Brief
and the Reply Brief in their entirety.
Given the above undisputed teachings, we concur with the
examiner that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been
led to anneal the etched gate in the method taught by Choi,
motivated by a reasonable expectation of obtaining desired CMOS
devices.
The appellants do not specifically argue why the collective
teachings of Choi and Lin would not have led one of ordinary
skill in the art to the claimed subject matter. See the Brief,
pages 4-7 and the Reply Brief, Page 2. Rather, the appellants
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