Appeal No. 2006-1341
Application No. 09/782,180
pointed out by the examiner, claim 1 is an article claim defining
a mirror finish made by a process step, and claim 17 simply
requires a mirror finished surface without regard to how it is
made.
Concerning the claimed reinforcement member on the mirrored
surface, we agree with the examiner that the protective tape on
surface 36 of Toyosawa’s device meets the claimed requirement
(see column 12, lines 27-31). While appellants contend that “the
protective tape is used only in a manufacturing step and does not
form structure of the chip in the context claimed” (page 7 of
principal brief, second paragraph), the rejected claims are
sufficiently broad to encompass devices which receive a further
processing step.
We are also not persuaded by appellants’ argument that the
terms “reinforcement” and “protective” have different meanings in
the semiconductor art. The rejected claims do not define any
degree of reinforcement and we concur with the examiner that the
protective tape of the reference “inherently makes stronger the
semiconductor chip 32 and strengthens it by additional material
or support,” at least to some degree (page 8 of answer, fourth
paragraph).
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