Appeal No. 2005-1011 Page 11
Application No. 09/921,588
Claims 1 to 25, 30 to 33 and 35 to 39
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 1 to 25, 30 to 33 and 35 to 39 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kimura in view of Nagahara.
In this rejection (final rejection, pp. 2-3), the examiner ascertained that Kimura
discloses all the limitations of the independent claims under appeal (i.e., claims 1, 16,
19, 23, 30 and 31) except for delivering polishing fluid with the same concentration
dispensed at different rates at different regions. The examiner then concluded that:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the
invention was made, to modify the system of Kimura et al. by delivering polishing
fluids having the same concentration at varying rates to different regions as
taught by Nagahara et al. to adapt the system for removing film material at
dissimilar rates to offset films which have previously accumulated at dissimilar
thicknesses across the wafer, (Nagahara et al. col. 2, lines 8-16).
The appellants argue throughout the briefs that there is no motivation in the
applied prior art to combine the Kimura and Nagahara so as to arrive at the claimed
subject matter. We agree. In that regard, we view the teachings of Kimura and
Nagahara of how to deliver polishing fluid to be so disparate that a person having
ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made would not have modified
Kimura in the manner set forth in this rejection.
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