Appeal No. 2006-1663
Application No. 09/871,883
Claims 1-4, 6-13, 15-20, 22-25 and 27-29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Farrar in view of Havemann.
Claims 30-33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over Farrar in view of Otsuka.
Claims 34-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over Farrar in view of Otsuka and further in view of Havemann.
Rather than reiterate the respective positions advocated by the Appellants
and by the Examiner concerning these rejections, we refer to the corrected Brief
(filed April 25, 2005), Reply Brief (filed November 14, 2003) and Reply Brief
responsive to the Supplemental Examiner’s Answer (filed September 28, 2005),
and to the Answer and Supplemental Examiner’s Answer, respectively, for a
complete exposition thereof.
OPINION
Appellants have separately argued the following claims: 1, 7-8, 10, 16-18,
20, 23-24, 25, 28-29, 30-31, 32, 33 and 34-35. We shall address these claims
accordingly in our opinion below.
The claims are generally directed to an interconnect structure used in
semiconductors. To aid in explaining the claimed subject matter, we expound upon
claim 1, the broadest claim, by referring to Appellants’ Figures 4A and 4B. These
figures are reproduced below. We parenthetically note next to the respective claim
feature the reference numeral of the particular claim feature referred to in Figures
4A or 4B.
Claim 1 recites a lower level wire (200) in a dielectric layer (245), said
lower level wire (200) having a side and a bottom, said lower level wire
comprising a lower core conductor (220) and a lower conductive liner (215), said
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