Ex Parte Doan

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 29, 2003

09652969 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 29, 2003)

The opinion in support of the decision being entered today was not written
for publication and is not binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 16
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte TRUNG T. DOAN
____________
Appeal No. 2002-2159
Application No. 09/652,969
____________
ON BRIEF
____________
Before COHEN, ABRAMS, and STAAB, Administrative Patent Judges.
ABRAMS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal from the examiner's final rejection of claims 38-40,
which are all of the claims pending in this application.
We REVERSE.
Appeal No. 2002-2159
Application No. 09/652,969
Page 2
BACKGROUND
The appellant's invention relates to a chemical dispensing system for
semiconductor wafer processing. An understanding of the invention can be derived
from a reading of exemplary claim 38, which has been reproduced below.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the
appealed claims are:
Iwata et al. (Iwata) 4,611,553 Sep. 16, 1986
Milina 5,444,921 Aug. 29, 1995
The examiner has rejected claims 38-40 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Iwata in view of Milina.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
the appellant regarding the above-noted rejection, we make reference to the Answer
(Paper No. 12) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejection, and to
the Brief (Paper No. 11) and Reply Brief (Paper No. 13) for the appellant's arguments
thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
Appeal No. 2002-2159
Application No. 09/652,969
Page 3
As explained in the appellant’s specification, coating materials commonly are
applied to semiconductor wafers by flowing liquid coating material onto the top surface
of a wafer while it is spinning on a rotating spin chuck. The rotation causes the coating
material to flow outwardly over the wafer. In practice, however, some excess coating
material tends to collect at and form a bead around the edge of the wafer. This
commonly is removed by dispensing a solvent along the edge of the wafer, which then
is removed along with the excess coating that had formed the edge bead. The
appellant’s invention is directed to a device for removing the solvent and the bead.
Independent claim 38 expresses the invention in the following manner:
38. A removal system for a workpiece having an overlying material,
comprising:
a nozzle having an extended position and a retracted
position, wherein said nozzle is disposed toward said
workpiece and configured to dispense a chemical toward
said workpiece while in said extended position; and
a suction applicator commensurately movable with said
nozzle and defining a port around said nozzle, wherein said
suction applicator is configured to withdraw said chemical
and said material at a distance from said workpiece.
Appeal No. 2002-2159
Application No. 09/652,969
Page 4
1The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would have suggested to
one of ordinary skill in the art. See, for example, In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881
(CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie case of obviousness, it is incumbent upon the examiner to
provide a reason why one of ordinary skill in the art would have been led to modify a prior art reference or
to combine reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972,
973 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some teaching,
suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge generally available to one of
ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure. See, for example, Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-
Wiley Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1439 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
The examiner has rejected independent claim 38 and dependent claims 39 and
40 under Section 103 as being obvious1 in view of the combined teachings of Iwata and
Milina. It is the examiner’s view that Iwata discloses all of the subject matter recited in
claim 38 except for the nozzles having an extended and retracted position, but that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add such a feature to
Iwata in view of the teachings of Milina. In this regard, the examiner has taken the
position that the motivation for the proposed modification is to “provide ease of loading
and unloading the wafer onto the holder” (Answer, page 4). The appellant argues in
rebuttal that the examiner’s rejection is defective for two reasons. The first of these is
that in Iwata the nozzle that dispenses the chemical is not disposed toward the
workpiece, as is required by claim 38. The second is that neither of the references
teach that the nozzle and the suction applicator be movable commensurately in order to
provide ease of loading and unloading, and thus there is no evidence to support the
examiner’s position that it would have been obvious to do so for the reason advanced
by the examiner.
Appeal No. 2002-2159
Application No. 09/652,969
Page 5
2We note in passing that since no other means for placing cleaning fluid on the workpiece is
disclosed, it would appear that the cleaning fluid dispensed from nozzle 5 also impinges upon the
workpiece. We base this opinion upon the explanation in column 1 that the invention is an improvement
upon prior art nozzles in which a single nozzle element both applies cleaning fluid and removes cleaning
fluid along with the material constituting the lateral edge bead (column 1, line 24 et seq.), and that
evacuating ports 10 and 10' of the inventive system “are used to remove the lateral edge bead portions
after dilution, together with the cleaning fluid from the coated layer” (column 2, lines 34-38).
Iwata discloses a removal system for a workpiece having an overlying material
comprising a suction nozzle (4) having a suction port (6) for removing coating material
from the edge parts of the workpiece along with a diluent chemical that has been
sprayed onto the coating to facilitate its removal (columns 1 and 2). Positioned within
the suction nozzle is a cleaning liquid nozzle (jetted outlet 5) through which a diluent
chemical may be injected. Nozzle 5 is “offset from the longitudinal axis of the nozzle [4]
and forms an angle of 30° to 85° with respect to the longitudinal axis of the nozzle”
(column 1, line 66 et seq.). Thus, it is our view that nozzle 5 is “configured to dispense
a chemical toward said workpiece,” as required by claim 38, even though the reference
attaches importance to the fact that the orientation of the nozzle creates an eddy
stream in the vacuum nozzle so as to clean it during operation. We therefore find the
appellant’s first argument not to be persuasive.2
However, we agree with the appellant that there is no evidence in the two
references to support the examiner’s position that one of ordinary skill in the art would
have been motivated to provide the Iwata system with means for moving the suction
nozzle and the applicator nozzle commensurately in order to provide ease of loading
Appeal No. 2002-2159
Application No. 09/652,969
Page 6
and unloading the wafer. Not only is such a teaching not explicitly expressed in the
applied references, but it appears to us that there is no reason for it to be implicit in the
operation of either system, as disclosed. This being the case, the combined teachings
of Iwata and Milina fail to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with regard to the
subject matter recited in claim 38, and we will not sustain this rejection.
CONCLUSION
The rejection is not sustained.
The decision of the examiner is reversed.
Appeal No. 2002-2159
Application No. 09/652,969
Page 7
IRWIN CHARLES COHEN )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
NEAL E. ABRAMS ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
LAWRENCE J. STAAB )
Administrative Patent Judge )
NEA:pgg
Appeal No. 2002-2159
Application No. 09/652,969
Page 8
CHARLES BRANTLEY
MICRON TECHNOLOGY, INC.
8000 S. FEDERAL WAY
BOISE, ID 83716-9632