Appeal No. 2005-0779
Application No. 09/802,084
OPINION
For the reasons set forth below, these rejections cannot be
sustained.
On pages 3-4 of the answer, the examiner expresses his
anticipation finding with respect to appealed claim 1 (the sole
independent claim before us) in the following manner:
Pertaining to claim 1, see FIGS. 1-5, where Burnham
teaches a method of manufacturing a photonic integrated
circuit comprising a compound semiconductor structure having
a quantum well region 54, comprising the steps of
irradiating the structure using a source of photons (i.e.,
laser, column 2, lines 1-5) to generate defects, the photons
having an energy (E) at least that of the displacement
energy (E[D]) of at least one element of the compound
semiconductor, and subsequently annealing the structure to
promote quantum well intermixing.
In support of their contrary view, the appellants argue that
the Burnham patent contains no disclosure concerning the appealed
claim 1 steps of irradiating a semiconductor structure “to
generate defects” and “subsequently annealing the structure.”
More specifically, the appellants acknowledge that Burnham
irradiates his semiconductor structure with a laser beam but
point out that this laser beam irradiation is for the purpose of
creating thermally disordered areas as opposed to generating
defects as here claimed. The appellants additionally point out
that the Burnham method does not include an annealing step
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