Appeal No. 2005-1220
Application No. 09/270,606 Page 14
representative claim 13 obvious to one of ordinary skill in the
art at the time of the invention. As for the additional claim
requirement that the high structure polishing removal rate of the
slurry would be less than the blanket rate prior to adding a
slurry modifier, such as ethylene glycol, we note that it is
reasonable to expect that the cerium oxide slurry of Kodera would
have a substantially similar rate prior to adding ethylene glycol
as a dispersing agent given the commonalities thereof to the CMP
slurry of appellant. It is well settled that in a case such as
this where appellant is asserting a functional property for a
slurry that is alleged to be not possessed by a prior art slurry
that appears to comparable to that of appellant, it is
appropriate that the burden is shifted to appellant to show that
the prior art slurry would not, in fact, possess the property in
question. Here, appellant has not undertaken, much less
discharged, that burden. It follows that we will also sustain
the examiner’s obviousness rejection of the third claim grouping.
Regarding the fourth multiple claim grouping (Issue No. 5)
and representative claim 17, appellant acknowledges that Kodera
seemingly discloses a low density high structure polishing rate
that is essentially the same as a high density high structure
polishing rate, as required by claim 17, albeit in so doing
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