Appeal No. 2005-1219
Application No. 09/774,192
is embedded in the lid and would be thermally coupled to the chamber wall 10 by contact. A heater
lb embedded in the lid would be between the coil 1 and the other three walls that make up the
vacuum chamber. The chamber wall is not recited as the lid until the unargued dependent claims.
With regard to the other difference between Yoshida and the prior art, the examiner states
that the placement of the Faraday shield above or below the heating element is a choice of design
and obvious to one of ordinary skill in the semiconductor manufacturing art. The examiner further
states that the device would function the same no matter whether the shield is placed above or
below the heater. While appellants have argued that the placement of the shield and heater are not
arbitrary, this appears to refer to the placement of the heater and shield on top of the chamber lid
and does not concern whether the shield placed below or above the heater is patentably significant.
Appellants’ argument concerns whether the heater and shield are easily replaceable and does not
address whether the shield placed above or below the heater would function differently. Inasmuch
as the examiner has stated that the placement of the shield would have been obvious in the art, and
the appellants have contradicted him with neither argument nor evidence, we hold that the
placement of the Faraday shield would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Since all claims were stated to fall with independent claim 28, we affirm the section 103
rejection of all claims on appeal.
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