Appeal 2006-3235
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,696
1 reasons. First, although Claim 11 is to be given the broadest reasonable
2 interpretation consistent with the disclosure of the ‘857 patent, that
3 disclosure does not include the entirety of the disclosures of the Hiatt and
4 Fleuren articles. The ‘857 patent fails to indicate that Hiatt and Fleuren are
5 incorporated by reference, let alone explain which parts which are being
6 incorporated, as required to achieve a legally effective incorporation by
7 reference. Cook Biotech, 460 F.3d at 1376, 79 USPQ2d at 1872. As a
8 result, Hiatt and Fleuren are part of the ‘857 patent only to the extent they
9 are discussed in the patent, which does not mention that they address only
10 failure analysis.
11 Even assuming for the sake of argument that Hiatt and Fleuren are
12 incorporated by reference in their entirety, Appellant’s argument fails
13 because nothing in those articles indicates that “hot spot detection” is a term
14 of art that necessarily refers to failure analysis. To the contrary, Hiatt and
15 Fleuren suggest that their methods are not limited to failure analysis. Hiatt,
16 in the last paragraph under the heading “Procedure,” explains that “the
17 method has the potential to make accurate junction-to-case thermal
18 resistance measurements on semiconductors,” Hiatt at 131, an application
19 which has not been demonstrated or even asserted to involve defective
20 semiconductors. Fleuren explains in his “Conclusion” (at 149) that the
21 disclosed thermotropic use of nematic liquid crystals “is applicable to all
22 kind of semiconductor processes and has proven itself over the years as
23 ideally suited for (failure) analysis purposes.” The inclusion of “failure” in
24 parentheses ahead of “analysis” suggests that failure analysis is only one
25 type of analysis for which the method is suited.
27
Page: Previous 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013