Appeal 2007-0496
Application 10/273,147
claim 10 with the limitation “the heater is formed of at least one circular
heater,” and claim 10 does not contain “a heater” limitation necessary as
antecedent basis for the limitation of claim 17. Thus, claim 17 is indefinite
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph. Therefore, we determine it is impossible
to ascertain the propriety of the Examiner’s ground of rejection of claim 17
under § 103(a) over the combined teachings of Anderson, Lee, Shi, and Ito.
See In re Wilson, 424 F.2d 1382, 1385, 165 USPQ 494, 496 (CCPA 1970);
In re Steele, 305 F.2d 859, 862-63, 134 USPQ 292, 295-96 (CCPA 1962).
Accordingly, we reverse the ground of rejection of claim 17 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) pro forma.5
The grounds of rejection of claim 1 and of claims 2 through 9
dependent thereon, are each based principally on the combined teachings of
Anderson and Lee, the scope of which references we determined above. The
plain language of claim 1 specifies a CVD apparatus comprising at least,
among other things, with reference to Specification Fig. 1, any VUV source
3 outside the chamber and any manner of transparent plate 2 in any part,
exterior or interior, of the chamber, wherein heater 20 is provided directly on
plate 2 for heating the plate.
The Examiner contends Anderson’s lamps 34 are heaters for
transparent domes 14,16 and are “provided directly on” the domes because
lamps 34 are mounted around chamber 12 and the “unlabelled mounting
pieces of Figure 1 supporting lamps 34 must be structurally tied to
Anderson’s chamber 12.” The Examiner argues the claim limitation
9
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