Appeal 2006-2725
Application 09/982,406
1 For the above reasons we are not convinced of reversible error in the
2 rejections over Toshio and over Toshio in view of Young and Hanson.
3 Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over the combined disclosures of Okayama and
4 Young, and over the combined disclosures of Okayama, Young, and Hansson.
5 Okayama discloses a device for positioning a semiconductor wafer in a
6 particular direction before supplying it to a process such as inspection or etching
7 (Okayama 2-3). The device includes a holder (10) having ball bearings (11)
8 therein that support a rotatable ball (7) (Okayama 6). The holder is shown as
9 having a lip that holds the rotatable ball in the holder (fig. 3(a)).
10 The Appellants argue that the applied references do not teach, show or
11 suggest all of the limitations of claim 8 (Br. 10-12), but the Appellants do not
12 provide a substantive argument as to what the Appellants consider the references to
13 be lacking.
14 The Appellants argue that the applied references do not teach, show, or
15 suggest a ball with a surface roughness of 4 micro-inches or less (Br. 11-12).
16 Okayama’s disclosure that the coefficient of friction between the balls and the
17 wafer is to be low to prevent dust generation (Okayama 5, 8-9) would have led one
18 of ordinary skill in the art to make the ball surface roughness as low as reasonably
19 possible, such as 4 micro-inches or less, to avoid dust generation.
20 We therefore are not convinced of reversible error in the rejections over the
21 combined disclosures of Okayama and Young and over the combined disclosures
22 of Okayama, Young, and Hansson.
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