Appeal 2007-0127
Application 09/749,916
1 ISSUES
2 Have the Appellants shown that the Examiner has not established that
3 the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to a person having
4 ordinary skill in the art, viewing the references of record - Saito, Uwai,
5 Degner, and Murai - in the context of the knowledge and skill of one of
6 ordinary skill in the art?
7 If the answer to the first issue is no, then have the Appellants shown
8 that the Examiner erred in determining that the rebuttal evidence does not
9 establish the patentability of the claimed subject matter?
10
11 FINDINGS OF FACT
12 The findings here and elsewhere in this decision are supported by a
13 preponderance of the evidence of record.
14 Appellant’s Description
15 1. The specification describes a low-resistivity (< 0.1 ohm-cm)
16 silicon parallel- plate electrode which can be mounted in a plasma reaction
17 chamber and used in semiconductor processing. (Specification, p. 3, ll. 9-
18 10).
19 2. The claimed electrode is a parallel-plate “showerhead” electrode
20 which has a plurality of gas outlets arranged to distribute process gas in the
21 plasma reaction chamber. (Specification, p. 3, ll. 16-17).
22 3. The specification teaches that the gas outlets in a parallel-plate
23 showerhead electrode are distributed across the exposed electrode surface.
24 (Specification, p. 3, ll. 18-19).
25 4. Parallel-plate showerhead electrodes are well known as desirable
26 for use in plasma reaction chambers. (Degner, col. 2, ll. 2-7).
4
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