Appeal No. 2005-2247
Application No. 09/976,641
Further, as pointed out by our reviewing court, we must first determine the scope
of the claim. “[T]he name of the game is the claim.” In re Hiniker Co., 150 F.3d
1362,1369, 47 USPQ2d 1523, 1529 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Therefore, we look to the
language of independent claim 11 which recites “a buried line of a first conductivity type
formed in said substrate, said buried line including a more lightly doped region over a
more heavily doped region and a more lightly doped region under said more heavily
doped region; a region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type
over said line and under said phase-change material.” Here, we find that the language
of independent claim 11 recites four regions formed in the substrate.
We find that each of Ovshinsky and Chang teach three separate regions of
varied conductivity formed in the substrate and formed in epitaxial layers. While the
examiner identifies at page 5 of the answer that the specific orientations of conductivity
regions would have prevented leakage current between the n+ conductive lines 32 and
the p- substrate 20 in the three layers, the examiner merely concludes that it would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to have
included this teaching into the manufacture of Ovshinsky. Moreover, the examiner
maintains that “Chang teaches that pn diodes can alternatively be formed exclusively in
bulk substrates without the inclusion of an epi layer, as opposed to being formed in the
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