Appeal No. 2005-0239
Application No. 10/145,421
Thus, on this record, we determine that the evidence of
obviousness, on balance, outweighs the evidence of non-
obviousness proffered by the appellants. Hence, we concur with
the examiner that the subject matter defined by claims 2 and 7
through 17 would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art within the meaning of Section 103.
As evidence of obviousness of the subject matter defined by
claim 3 under Section 103, the examiner relies on the collective
teachings of Choi, Lin and Lowell. According to the examiner
(Answer, page 4):
Choi et al. in view of Lin et al. teach all of the
limitations of the claimed method of 3, but fail to
teach performing an electrical critical dimension test
on the gate following gate anneal. Lowell et al. teach
measuring an electrical critical dimension such as
minority carrier diffusion length to ensure that the
device has the proper characteristics after the
formation steps. It would have been obvious to one
skilled in the art at the time of the invention to
measure an electrical critical dimension such as
minority carrier diffusion length to ensure that the
device has the proper characteristics after the
formation steps.
Since the appellants do not dispute the examiner’s findings and
conclusion above, we concur with the examiner that the subject
matter defined by claim 3 would also have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art within the meaning of Section 103.
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