Appeal No. 2006-1361
Application No. 09/997,019
claimed. They argue that Yoshihara teaches that the speed is “drastically reduced” using a
deceleration of 30,000 rpm/s. Appellants further argue that Yoshihara fails to teach that the
rate of spinning is gradually increased as claimed. Appellants assert that the artisan would
not have been motivated to apply the teachings of Yoshihara to Wang in order to form a
second material layer having a planar surface without requiring subsequent planarization of
the second material [reply brief, pages 5-6].
We will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 3-5. Although Yoshihara teaches
a spinning technique that results in a coating of uniform thickness, and could yield a surface
which is planar in some places, we agree with appellants that there is no teaching that this
technique would result in a layer 60 which has an upper planar surface over the entire device
as desired by Wang because the recesses and the dielectric surface would both be coated by
the same amount. Therefore, the non-planar features of the dielectric layer would still be
present after the spin-coating process taught by Yoshihara. We also agree with appellants
that the there is no teaching in Yoshihara of gradually decreasing and increasing the spinning
rates. The examiner has failed to respond to this argument and has not pointed to any portion
of Yoshihara which teaches this claimed feature.
We now consider the rejection of claims 8 and 9 based on Wang and Hsieh. The
examiner has explained how the invention of these claims is deemed to be rendered obvious
by the collective teachings of the applied prior art [answer, page 8]. Appellants’ only
argument is that these claims are patentable based upon their dependency from claim 1 [brief,
page 16]. Since we find that the examiner has established at least a prima facie case of
obviousness with respect to these claims, and since appellants have not presented any
persuasive arguments in rebuttal, we sustain the examiner’s rejection of these claims.
In summary, we have sustained the examiner’s rejections of the claims with respect to
claims 1, 2, 6-9, and 19-22, but we have not sustained the examiner’s rejections of the claims
with respect to claims 3-5 and 10-18. Therefore, the decision of the examiner rejecting
claims 1-22 is affirmed-in-part.
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