Appeal No. 2005-1503
Application No. 10/165,888
The examiner relies upon the following references as
evidence of unpatentability:
Keeble* 4,844,775 July 4, 1989
Duncombe et al. (Duncombe) 6,255,122 July 3, 2001
Ma et al. (Ma) 6,348,373 Feb. 19, 2002
Lin et al. (Lin) 6,458,695 Oct. 1, 2002
*The examiner uses Keeble in applying Duncombe.
On page 3 of the brief, appellants state that the claims are
grouped according to the rejections. We therefore consider
claims 1, 3, 7, and 9 in this appeal. See former regulation 37
CFR § 1.192(c)(7)(2003), and compare current regulation 37 CFR
§ 41.37(c)(1)(vii)(September 13, 2004). Also see Ex parte
Schier, 21 USPQ2d 1016, 1018 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1991).
We have carefully reviewed appellants’ brief, the examiner’s
answer, and the evidence of record. This review has led us to
the following determinations.
OPINION
I. The 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph rejection of claim 9
We consider claim 9 in this rejection.
On page 3 of the answer, the examiner rejects claim 9 as
being indefinite and states that this claim is an omnibus type
claim. In reply, on page 4 of the brief, appellants state that
claim 9 “is specific to the regions shown in the figure and thus
is not an omnibus claim”.
On page 4 of appellants’ specification, Figure 4 is
described as a Gibbs diagram showing useful gate dielectric
compositions made of HF, SI, and O. The specification indicates
that the composition regions indicated by broken and solid line
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