Opinion ID: 181474
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Downwardly Alongside

Text: Appellants appeal the Commission's construction of the claim limitation bonding wires extending downwardly alongside said edges of said chip included in claim 1 of the '326 patent. The Commission construed the limitation to mean along the side of the semiconductor chip, with the caveat that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that through the wire bonding process, the bonding wires may extend up, outward and then downward toward the backing element. Initial Determination at 39-40. The Commission based this finding on the specification's description of the bonding wires as conventional and the understanding of one of skill in the art that the conventional wire bonding process may cause bonding wires to extend up, out, and then down. Id. at 38-39. Appellants argue that this construction impermissibly broadens the claim limitation and renders the term alongside superfluous because it does not specify how far from the semiconductor chip edge the bonding wires are allowed to fan out. Appellants' position is that the specification and prosecution history require that the limitation define alongside as being in close proximity to the edges of the semiconductor chip. Specifically, Appellants cite Figure 26 in the '326 patent and its description stating alongside the chip, in close proximity to the edges of the chip as defining alongside to include the limitation in close proximity. '326 patent col. 31 ll.14-15. In addition, Appellants assert that the specification does not support the Commission's finding that the invention discloses using conventional wire bonding because Figure 29 distinguishes between a subassembly embodying the claimed invention and another chip that uses conventional bonding wires. Finally, Appellants contend that the prosecution history confirms that alongside means in close proximity because during the prosecution of U.S. Patent No. 5,347,159 (the '159 patent), the parent of the '326 patent, the inventors expressly distinguished their invention from the prior art Kishida patent for not disclosing conductive leads alongside the edges of a chip. Instead, the inventors stated that the prior art conductive leads extend outwardly from the various chips rather than upwardly alongside of the chips. This court is not persuaded by any of these arguments. This court agrees with the ALJ that the proper construction of downwardly alongside includes conventional bonding wires. The specification discloses only conventional wires that are connected between elements using a conventional wire bonding process. '326 patent col. 29 ll.26-46. Figure 14 demonstrates conventional bonding wires extending up, out, and then down. Id. col. 18 ll.58-60. Appellants do not disagree that conventional wire bonds attaching elements on one side of the chip to elements on the other extend up, out, and then down. In fact, Appellants concede that all the accused products use conventional wire bonding, with wires that extend up from the chip contacts, and out and away from the chip before extending down to attach to contacts on the rear side of the chip. Freescale's Principal Br. at 59-60. And Appellants do not point to any language in the specification that discloses wires bonded in a different manner. Figure 26 discloses the use of trace leads, labeled 948, in addition to bonding wires, labeled 928. Appellants' reliance on this figure and its description including the phrase in close proximity is misplaced because that description refers only to the leads, and not to the bonding wires. '326 patent col. 29 ll.19-20. The only bonding wires illustrated in Figure 26 do in fact extend upward, outward and then downward from contacts but then terminate at the point where they connect to trace leads above the face of the chip. Appellants' reliance on Figure 29 is similarly misplaced. Figure 29 does not illustrate the use of bonding wires to attach contacts on one side of the chip to terminals on the other side of the chip. Instead, Figure 29 shows a semiconductor package using leads and flaps for this purpose. Finally, this court is not persuaded that the inventors disclaimed bonding wires not in close proximity to the semiconductor chip in the prosecution of the '159 patent. Appellants argue that the inventors' statement these wiring films extend outwardly from the various chips rather than upwardly alongside of the chips distinguishes the prior art Kishida wiring films (shown below) from connections that extend downwardly alongside the semiconductor chip. J.A. 62395. This court does not agree. First, the '159 patent claims disclose leads and flaps rather than bonding wires for electrically connecting one side of the semiconductor chip to the other. Therefore, any disclaimers specifically relating to the type of connection do not apply to the '326 patent. See Saunders Group, Inc. v. Comfortrac, Inc., 492 F.3d 1326, 1333 (Fed.Cir.2007) (When the purported disclaimers are directed to specific claim terms that have been omitted or materially altered in subsequent applications (rather than to the invention itself), those disclaimers do not apply.); see also Ventana Med. Sys. v. Biogenex Labs., 473 F.3d 1173, 1182 (Fed.Cir.2006) ([T]he doctrine of prosecution disclaimer generally does not apply when the claim term in the descendant patent uses different language.); Invitrogen Corp. v. Clontech Labs., Inc., 429 F.3d 1052, 1078 (Fed.Cir.2005) ([T]he prosecution of one claim term in a parent application will generally not limit different claim language in a continuation application.). Second, even if the inventors' statement was related not to the type of connection, but to the mutual claim term alongside, it is still unclear that it was a disclaimer of connections not in close proximity to the chip edge. Instead of distinguishing the invention from Kashida because of the distance of the wiring films from the chip edge, it is at least as likely that the inventors were distinguishing the invention from the prior art wiring films because the films never extend along the sides of the chipsthe prior art wiring films extend up and out, but never down. Thus, the inventors' statement was not sufficiently clear to establish that a disclaimer occurred. See Omega Eng'g, Inc. v. Raytek Corp., 334 F.3d 1314, 1325 (Fed.Cir.2003) (To balance the importance of public notice and the right of patentees to seek broad patent coverage, we have thus consistently rejected prosecution statements too vague or ambiguous to qualify as a disavowal of claim scope.). For the foregoing reasons, this court affirms the Commission's construction of the downwardly alongside limitation. Therefore, this court need not address Appellants' argument that the accused packages do not infringe under their preferred construction.