Detailed Action
This office action is in response to the request for continued examination filed on June 6th, 2025. Claims 25-26 and 37 are pending.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on June 6th, 2025, has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed May 7th, 2025, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues (pg. 4, “Remarks”) that Ritter and the other cited references fail to teach the limitations presented in amended Claim 25.
However, as seen below, Claim 25 is now rejected by the combination of Varley-1 and Sasaki.
Therefore, applicant’s arguments are not persuasive and are moot in view of the new grounds of consideration.
Applicant’s amendments have overcome the U.S.C. 112(a) rejection of the previous office action.
Applicant’s amendments have overcome the U.S.C. 112(b) rejections of the previous office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 25 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Varley et al. (Varley et al. “Ambipolar doping in SnO”, Applied Physics Letters, 2013, Volume 103, pages 1-5; hereinafter Varley-1) in view of Sasaki et al. (2014/0217469 A1; hereinafter Sasaki).
Regarding Claim 25, Varley-1 teaches a method of bipolar doping (Pg. 1, Col. 1, Para. 1, ambipolar doping of SnO), the method comprising: partially filling cation vacancies (Pg. 1, Col. 2, Para. 1, Sn vacancies) in an oxide semiconductor material (SnO) with hydrogen, thereby lowering their acceptor states to act as shallow acceptors (Pg. 1, Col. 2, Para. 1, formation energy is lowered and Sn vacancies act as shallow acceptors), so as to dope the oxide semiconductor material p-type (Pg. 1, Col. 2, Para. 1, forms p-type conductivity). Varley-1 does not teach wherein the oxide semiconductor material comprises undoped Ga2O3.
However, Sasaki (fig. 1) teaches doping an oxide semiconductor ([0084], Ga2O3) material with hydrogen ([0084], H), so as to dope the oxide semiconductor material p-type ([0084]), wherein the oxide semiconductor material comprises undoped Ga2O3 ([0079], Ga2O3 is originally undoped, [0081], Ga2O3 is then doped p-type). Sasaki also teaches that devices formed from Ga2O3 have excellent performance ([0086]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to replace the SnO film of Varley-1 with the Ga2O3 film of Sasaki to form semiconductor devices with excellent performance.
Claim 26 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Varley-1 and Sasaki, as applied to Claim 25 above, and further in view of Nomura (U.S. 2016/0133751 A1; hereinafter Nomura).
Regarding Claim 26, Varley-1 does teach that hydrogen that leads to p-type doping is often incorporated in growth and processing environments (Pg. 1, Col. 2, Para. 1), but doesn’t teach a growth and processing environment.
However, Nomura (see fig. 5), In a similar method for doping an oxide semiconductor, teaches placing an oxide semiconductor material ([0072], [0089], SnO for example) in a sealed system ([0087], processing chamber); evacuating air from the sealed system ([0097], hydrogen annealing contains no air); introducing hydrogen gas into the sealed system ([0090], H2 process gas); and annealing the oxide semiconductor material in the sealed system at an elevated temperature for a period of time ([0090], annealing temperature) to allow the hydrogen gas to diffuse into the oxide semiconductor material and thereby dope the oxide semiconductor material p-type ([0090], hydrogen diffuses into the oxide semiconductor). Nomura also teaches that p-type oxide semiconductors formed by this method provide significantly improved TFT characteristics ([0066]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method for doping an oxide semiconductor p-type of Varley-1 to include the growth and processing environment and steps of Nomura to provide a p-type oxide semiconductor with improved TFT characteristics.
Claim 37 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Varley-1, Sasaki, and Nomura as applied to Claim 26 above, and further in view of Ritter et al. (Jacob R. Ritter, Jesse Huso, Peter T. Dickens, Joel B. Varley, Kelvin G. Lynn, Matthew D. McCluskey; Compensation and hydrogen passivation of magnesium acceptors in β-Ga2O3. Appl. Phys. Lett. 30 July 2018; 113 (5): 052101.; hereinafter Ritter).
Regarding Claim 37, while Nomura teaches the extent of hydrogenation may be controlled by parameters including anneal time, temperature, and H2 concentration ([0090]), Nomura does not teach the conditions for Ga2O3. Additionally, Nomura does not teach the method of claim 26, wherein the elevated temperature is about 950 °C, the period of time is about 2 hours, and the sealed system is at a pressure of about 580 torr during the annealing.
However, Ritter, teaches the elevated temperature is about 950 °C (Pg. 1, Col. 2, Para. 3; 820 C), the period of time is about 2 hours (Pg. 1, Col. 2, Para. 3; 2 hours), and the sealed system is at a pressure of about 580 torr during the annealing (Pg. 1, Col. 2, Para. 3; ½ atm) while still yielding the predictable result of diffusing hydrogen into a metal oxide. These processing conditions would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be optimizable through routine experimentation, since the temperature, time, and pressure are result-effective variables, that is, a variable which achieves a recognized result, as stated in MPEP § 2144.05. In this case, these processing conditions will determine the extent of the hydrogenation of the Ga2O3. It has been well established that the optimum or workable ranges of a result-effective variable can be characterized as routine experimentation.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the processing conditions of Ritter because generally, differences in temperature, time, and pressure will not support the patentability of subject matter encompassed by the prior art unless there is evidence indicating such concentration or temperature is critical. "[W]here the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation." In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955).
Conclusion
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/A.H./Examiner, Art Unit 2817
/Kretelia Graham/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2817