Appeal 2007-2101
Application 10/859,552
Appellants argue claim 18 only. Accordingly, claims 19-22, which
directly or ultimately depend from claim 18, stand or fall with claim 18.
OPINION
Appellants argue that claim 18 requires that the metal used to form
“silicide regions comprising a first metal in said drain and source regions” is
different than the nickel and cobalt metals used to form the “nickel
silicide/cobalt silicide layer stack region” formed on the gate electrode (Br. 4
and 5). Appellants further argue that the Examiner used hindsight in
modifying Maex’s method of forming a gate electrode on a semiconductor to
arrive at the claimed invention (Br. 5 and 6).
We have considered all of Appellants’ arguments and are unpersuaded
for the reasons below.
The Examiner states that the claims do not require that the “first
metal” is different than the nickel and cobalt metals used to form the “nickel
silicide/cobalt silicide formed on the gate electrode (Answer 5). We agree.
During examination, “claims … are to be given their broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, and … claim
language should be read in light of the specification as it would be
interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art.” In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech.
Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364, 70 USPQ2d 1827, 1830 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
““Reading a claim in light of the specification,” to thereby interpret
limitations explicitly recited in the claim, is a quite different thing from
“reading limitations of the specification into a claim,” to thereby narrow the
scope of the claim by implicitly adding disclosed limitations which have no
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