Appeal 2007-0030
Application 10/359,557
disclosure of the capacitive coupling of power to the plasma within the
plasma chamber. According to Appellants (Br. 7-8; Reply Br. 1-3), the
plasma apparatus described by Murata, instead of capacitive coupling,
utilizes inductive coupling of RF power to the plasma chamber with the
rungs of the ladder-shaped electrodes 32 being inductors.
After careful review of the Murata reference in light of the arguments
of record, however, we are in general agreement with the Examiner’s
position as stated in the Answer. Initially, we note that both the Examiner
(Answer 3) and Appellants (Br. 5) agree that the ordinarily skilled artisan
would recognize that a plasma reactor having two electrodes in parallel
would involve the capacitive coupling of power to the plasma within the
reactor. Such a prior art plasma reactor structure is discussed at column 2,
lines 8-49 of Murata and illustrated in Murata’s Figure 12. As described,
such a parallel plate arrangement includes a high frequency electrode 22 and
a parallel electrode in the form of a heater 23.
Our review of the disclosed invention of Murata, which includes the
use of a power distributor to uniformly distribute power to the plasma
electrodes, reveals that Murata in fact discloses exactly such a parallel
electrode arrangement as illustrated, for example, in Figure 8. While
Appellants are correct that the Murata reference discloses the power
distribution feature in the context of a plasma reactor system which uses a
ladder-shaped electrode 32, we do not find any support for Appellants’
conclusion that this necessarily means that power is inductively coupled,
rather than capacitively coupled, to the plasma within the reactor.
Appellants direct attention to column 1, line 20 of Murata which, in
their view (Br. 5; Reply Br. 2), establishes that a ladder electrode means a
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