Appeal No. 2005-1086 3
Application No. 09/032,305
of the monomers in the reaction is propylene, any other monomer may be present,
because the term ‘comprises’ permits the inclusion of other steps, elements, or materials.”)
PRIOR ART REFERENCES
As evidence of unpatentability, the examiner relies on the following prior art
references:
Lampert et al. (Lampert) 4,692,223 Sep. 8, 1987
Fabry et al. (Fabry) 5,219,613 Jun. 15, 1993
Hayashida et al. (Hayashida) 5,580,846 Dec. 3, 1996
THE REJECTIONS
Claims 6, 7 and 9 through 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over the combined disclosure of Fabry, Lampert and Hayashida.
OPINION
We have carefully reviewed the claims, specification and applied prior art, including
all of the arguments and evidence advanced by both the examiner and the appellants in
support of their respective positions. This review has led us to conclude that the
examiner’s rejection is well founded. Accordingly, we affirm the examiner’s rejection for
essentially those reasons set forth in the Answer and below.
The appellants argue (the Brief, page 7) that:
The Fabry U.S. Patent in column 5 in Example 1 in lines 59 to 63 discloses
that subsequent to the polishing step, the wafers were first freed of polishing
residues, and then subjected to an oxidative cleaning. Thus, there is an
additional step of freeing from polishing residues in Fabry, and not the
claimed step of immediately oxidizing after removing the wafers from the
polishing plate.
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