Appeal No. 2005-0453 Page 11
Application No. 09/893,866
review. That is because the Examiner has established the obviousness of using pulsed DC
sputtering in the process of Zhang. As pointed out by the Examiner, Appellant’s own
specification states that “[t]he usual type of sputtering used in commercial applications is DC
magnetron sputtering, which is limited to the sputtering of metallic target [sic].” (specification,
p. 5, ll. 3-5). We further note that the specification indicates that non-pulsed DC sputtering was
also standard (specification, p. 7, ll. 24-26).
Appellant argues that there appears to be no motivation to combine the three references
nor any reasonable expectation of success (Brief, p. 14). But Zhang specifically calls for
sputtering and, therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have looked to conventional
sputtering operations to perform the process of Zhang. The Examiner has provided sufficient
evidence that both pulsed and non-pulsed DC sputtering were known in the art. The express
suggestion in Zhang of using sputtering coupled with the evidence that pulsed and non-pulsed
DC sputtering were known in the art provides the required suggestion of using those sputtering
techniques in the process of Zhang with a reasonable expectation that the desired film would be
created by the process.
We conclude that the Examiner has established a prima facie case of obviousness with
respect to the subject matter of claims 7, 10, 20, and 23 which has not been sufficiently rebutted
by Appellant.
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