Appeal No. 2005-1220
Application No. 09/270,606 Page 13
silicon dioxide layer relative to lower portions of that layer to
be persuasive.
With regard to representative claim 4 and appellant’s second
claim grouping, appellant also maintains that the ethylene glycol
component of the polishing slurry, as required by that claim is
not suggested by the combined teachings of the references.
However, for reasons set forth above and in the answer, we
disagree. The use of slurry modifiers including a dispersing or
suspension agent, such as ethylene glycol is clearly suggested by
the teachings of those combined references so as to aid in the
dispersion of the cerium oxide and any other abrasive particles
in the polishing slurry. One of ordinary skill in the art would
have readily determined the workable and optimum amounts of such
a result effective suspension agent to be used in the polishing
slurry upon routine experimentation. Consequently, those
additional arguments do not overcome the examiner’s obviousness
rejection of the second group of claims.
Concerning representative claim 13 of appellant’s third
claim grouping, we recognize that a substantially zero polishing
rate for low structures is not required therein albeit an
approximately blanket rate of polishing the high structure areas
is required. For reasons stated above and in the answer, we find
that high structure polishing rate as called for in
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