Appeal No. 2006-2832
Application No. 09/833,953
situated over said well. Thus, we find a teaching in Erdeljac of the claimed subject
matter of claim 14.
Appellant has not separately argued the contents of the claims dependent on
claim 14, and we concur with the Examiner that their limitations are obvious over
the prior art as demonstrated by the references Zaccherini in view of Erdeljac and
Shao.
Motivation to Combine
Appellant argues that the motivation to combine these references is
impermissible hindsight. For guidance on this issue, we consider the following:
While this court indeed warns against employing hindsight, its
counsel is just that – a warning. That warning does not provide a rule
of law that an express, written motivation to combine must appear in
prior art references before a finding of obviousness. Stated differently,
this court has consistently stated that a court or examiner may find a
motivation to combine prior art references in the nature of the problem
to be solved. Ruiz v. A.B. Chance Co., 357 F.3d 1270, 1276, 69
USPQ2d 1686, 1690 (Fed. Cir. 2004); Also Pro-Mold & Tool Co. v.
Great Lake Plastic Inc., 75 F.3d 1568, 1573, 37 USPQ2d 1626, 1630;
In re Huang, 100 F.3d 135, 139 n.5, 40 USPQ2d 1685, 1688 n.5
(Fed. Cir. 1996).
The claimed invention relates to the “fabrication of CMOS… semiconductor
devices.” An objective of the application is to “simplify the fabrication process
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