Appeal 2007-1269
Application 10/636,468
that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 63 as being obvious over Pasadyn
and Liu.
Regarding claim 1, Appellants argue that "Pasadyn does not teach or
suggest calculating a process rate by subtracting post-process measurement
data from pre-process measurement data and dividing the result by a total
processing time, as recited by claim 1." (Br. 9.) Further, Appellants argue
that "Liu teaches a mid-process measurement to determine a total processing
time for each polished substrate" (Br. 10). Therefore, Appellants assert that:
Liu does not teach or suggest calculating a
process rate by subtracting post-process
measurement data from pre-process measurement
data and dividing the result by a total processing
time, as recited by claim 1, because the total
processing time never [sic] calculated by Liu, and
the remaining processing time is the resultant [sic]
that is calculated by Liu using the mid-process
measurement.
(Br. 10 (emphasis in original).) We disagree.
Liu discloses collecting a reference oxide layer thickness
measurement prior to a polishing process, collecting an oxide layer thickness
measurement after a first polishing time period, and calculating a process
rate. (FF 6-7.) The Examiner correctly found that Liu is not limited to a
3 The Briefs and the Answer purport to argue claim 5, but instead quote and
argue the substance of the language of claim 6. (See, e.g., Br. 12; Answer
10.) Under these circumstances, we will treat the arguments as being
directed to claim 6 and will consider the references to claim 5 to be
typographical errors. To the extent that the Appellants meant to refer to
claim 5, we agree with the Examiner's finding that Pasadyn discloses that
both pre-process measurement data and post-process measurement data each
include both thickness measurement and critical dimension information, as
recited by claim 5. (Answer 10.)
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