Appeal No. 2006-2218
Application No. 10/029,649
respect to claims 1, 10, 15 and 33, we sustain the 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) rejection of these claims, as well as dependent claims
3, 4, 6-9, 14, 16 and 34 over Merchant and Terasawa.
Turning now to the rejection of the remaining claims under
35 U.S.C. § 103 over Merchant, Terasawa and Ohara, Appellant, in
addition to the same arguments presented above with respect to
claims 1, 10 and 15, further asserts that the gold layer in Ohara
merely bonds the cap layer and cannot cure the deficiencies of
Merchant and Terasawa (Br. 25-26). We find that Ohara describes
the bonding layer between a silicon substrate and a silicon cap
layer using gold in combination with one of Ti, Al, Ta, etc.
(Ohara, col. 8, ll. 53-61) for reducing the natural oxide film on
the silicon substrate. Contrary to Appellant’s position (Br.
25), the absence of an integrated circuit in the silicon cap
layer of Ohara is irrelevant since bonding two substrates
including integrated circuits is taught by the combination of
Merchant and Terasawa, as discussed above. The Examiner relies
on Ohara for teaching the ratio of the oxide affinity material to
the interfacing gold that is taught by their respective
thicknesses (Ohara, col. 8, ll. 56-61). Accordingly, we sustain
the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claims 2, 11 and 17 over
Merchant, Terasawa and Ohara.
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