Appeal No. 2005-2239
Application No. 10/448,905
paragraph rejection of claims 1 to 17 and 21 to 38 as lacking an
enabling disclosure for the subject matter presently claimed.
REJECTIONS UNDER 35 U.S.C. § 102
Claims 1 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as
anticipated by Hung.4 We affirm the rejection for the reasons
presented by the Examiner and add the following.
Appellants argue, Brief page 8, that Hung does not
expressly describe that its plasma is devoid of carbon monoxide.
Thus, Appellants conclude that Hung does not inherently describe
a gas plasma is devoid of carbon monoxide.
Appellants’ argument is not persuasive. Appellants have
not directed us to evidence that establishes that Hung’s gas
contains carbon monoxide gas. Appellants have not established
that in the etch process disclosed by Hung that it is customary
to include carbon monoxide gas in the etch plasma. To the
contrary, Hung teaches that the active etching gas should be
limited to fluoromethanes for the reasons of cost, toxicity, and
availability. (See col. 5, ll. 45-46). Further, there is no
indication in the Hung reference that carbon monoxide gas is
4 We note Appellants have not separately argued claim 17,
therefore we will limit our discussion to claim 1.
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