DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-8, 10-13, 15-17, and 19-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 line 11-12 recites the limitation “the plasmonic metal clusters”. There is a lack of antecedent basis for “the plasmonic metal clusters” in the claims, thereby rendering the claim indefinite as the metes and bounds of the claim are not sufficiently clear. For the purpose of examination, the examiner interprets this limitation to read as “the plasmonic metal” because there is no support for “plasmonic metal clusters” in the specification, e.g. there is only support for clusters of atoms of the alloying metal.
Claims 2-8, 10-13, 15-17, and 19-23 are rejected based on their dependence on rejected claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 1-4, 7, 10, 15-17, and 19-23 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2014/0376352 to Cheng in view of US 2018/0350922 to Sachet.
As per claim 1, Cheng discloses a method for making a thermally-stabilized plasmonic alloy feature of a near-field transducer (see NFT 84 in Fig 2; see lollypop NFT in ) of a heat-assisted magnetic recording head (see heat assisted magnetic recording head 30 in Fig 2), the method comprising the steps of:
providing a substrate (see substrate 32 in Fig 2) to contain features of the heat-assisted magnetic recording head;
providing, on the substrate, an exposed surface for deposition (see portion of the substrate 32 in Fig 2 where the NFT 84 is provided), wherein the exposed surface for deposition is a surface of a first feature (see waveguide 42 in Fig 2) of the heat-assisted magnetic recording head;
depositing a plasmonic metal and an alloying metal directly onto the exposed surface for deposition and allowing formation of an alloy phase characterized by formation of grains of the plasmonic alloy metal and formation of clusters of atoms of the alloying metal within the grains of the plasmonic alloy (“clustering of secondary atoms”; Para 0036, 0042, 0045, 0051, 0058, 0068, and 0087) to form the thermally-stabilized plasmonic alloy feature (see peg 96 and disk shaped portion 94 of NFT 90 in Fig 3) (Para 0050, 0100-0102, 0149).
As per claim 1, Cheng discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1, but does not explicitly disclose that that the temperature of the substrate is elevated or maintaining the substrate at the deposition temperate during deposition. However, Cheng does disclose that the deposition of the plasmonic metal can include sputtering and other deposition methods (Para 0050) wherein it is known in the art that these deposition methods generally include elevating the temperature of a substrate within a deposition chamber to a deposition temperature and maintaining the deposition temperature during deposition.
Sachet discloses a similar sputtering deposition method wherein a substrate (see substrate 215 in Fig 2) is supported in a deposition chamber (see chamber 200 in Fig 2) on a heated support (see stage/heater/rotation 230 in Fig 2), wherein the sputtering of a metal or metallic alloy includes heating the substrate with the heated support to a temperature from room temperature to about 450 °C (Para 0050), and there is no mention of changing the temperature during deposition, so it would be reasonable for one of ordinary skill in the art to maintain the temperature at the deposition temperature during deposition.
At the time the application was filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill it the art to have modified the deposition method of Cheng so as to include elevating a temperature of the substrate to a deposition temperature and maintaining the deposition temperature during deposition as taught by Sachet. One of ordinary skill in the art would have realized that the deposition techniques, such a sputtering, as disclosed in Cheng generally require elevated substrate temperatures that are maintained during deposition and therefore the decision to elevate the temperature of the substrate would have been an obvious choice for one of ordinary skill in the art and because as it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges of temperatures involves only ordinary skill in the art; the obvious advantages being that the heating of the substrate and maintaining the temperature during deposition would enhance the adhesion of the metal or metallic alloy to the substrate during deposition and/or control the grain structure of the metal or metallic alloy deposited on the substrate as would be generally understood by one of ordinary skill in the art and/or provide property improvement and/or optimization of the deposited metal or metal alloys (Sachet: Para 0036).
As per claim 2, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Cheng further discloses that the first feature is an optical layer (see waveguide 42 in Fig 2).
As per claim 3, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 2. Cheng further discloses that the optical layer is a waveguide (see waveguide 42 in Fig 2).
As per claim 4, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Cheng further discloses that the thermally-stabilized plasmonic alloy feature of the near-field transducer is a peg (see peg 96 in Fig 3).
As per claim 7, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Cheng further discloses that the thermally-stabilized plasmonic alloy feature is a disk (see disk shaped portion 94 in Fig 3).
As per claim 10, Cheng and Sachet discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 9. As best understood, Sachet further discloses that the step of elevating the temperature of the substrate comprises increasing the temperature of the heater to between 175° C and 250° C, inclusive (between room temperature to about 450° C, Para 0050).
As per claim 15, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 14. Cheng further discloses that the step of depositing comprises the steps of: depositing the plasmonic metal (“gold (Au), silver (Ag), copper (Cu), or aluminum (Al)” as discussed in Para 0002 and 0030) at a first deposition rate (it is inherent that the deposition would occur at a deposition rate); and depositing the alloying metal (“bismuth (Bi), indium (In), tin (Sn), manganese (Mn), holmium (Ho), lutetium (Lu), praseodymium (Pr), scandium (Sc), uranium (U), barium (Ba), cesium (Cs), dysprosium (Dy), europium (Eu), rubidium (Rb), terbium (Tb), gadolinium (Gd), thallium (Tl), cadmium (Cd), neodymium (Nd), lead (Pb), hafnium (Hf), niobium (Nb), erbium (Er), zinc (Zn), magnesium (Mg), palladium (Pd), vanadium (V), chromium (Cr), iron (Fe), lithium (Li), nickel (Ni), platinum (Pt), sodium (Na), strontium (Sr), calcium (Ca), yttrium (Y), thorium (Th), beryllium (Be), thulium (Tm), erbium (Er), ytterbium (Yb), promethium (Pm), cobalt (Co), cerium (Ce), lanthanum (La), praseodymium (Pr), or combinations thereof.” As discussed in Para 0002 and 0062) at a second deposition rate (it is inherent that the deposition would occur at a deposition rate).
As per claim 16, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Cheng further discloses that the plasmonic metal is gold (Para 0002 and 0030).
As per claim 17, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Cheng further discloses that the alloying metal is nickel (Para 0002 and 0047).
As per claims 19-20, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Cheng further discloses that a composition of the alloying metal in the thermally-stabilized plasmonic alloy feature is up to 6 percent and/or from 6 atomic percent to 20 atomic percent respectively (see Para 0063 that indicates that the secondary atom can be at a percentage of not less than 0.001% and not greater than 10%, which meets the limitations of up to 20%, i.e. less than 20%, up to 6%, i.e. less than 6%, and 6-20% as claimed in claims 18-20 respectively).
As per claim 21, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Cheng further discloses that the alloying metal can be selected based on atoms of the alloying metal having an atomic radius smaller than atoms of the plasmonic metal (Para 0035 and 0054).
As per claim 22, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Cheng further discloses that the alloying metal can be selected based on having a high solubility in the plasmonic metal (Para 0035 and 0040-0041).
As per claim 23, Cheng and Sachet disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Cheng further discloses that the alloying metal can be selected based on atoms of the alloying metal having a higher bond strength with atoms of the plasmonic metal than atoms of the plasmonic metal have with each other (Para 0035-0036).
Claims 5-6 and 8 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2014/0376352 to Cheng and US 2018/0350922 to Sachet in view of US 2014/0307534 to Zhou.
As per claim 5, Cheng and Sachet discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 4, but Cheng does not disclose the peg has an exposed surface where the disk is directly deposited onto the exposed surface.
Zhou discloses a similar method of manufacturing a near-field transistor (see NFT 112 in Fig 1; see NFT comprising peg 231 and disc 232 in Fig 2) for a heat assisted magnetic recording head (see HAMR slider 100 in Fig 1; see magnetic recording apparatus 200 in Fig 2), wherein a peg (see NFT peg 321 in Fig 3A) is deposited on a waveguide (see waveguide core layer 312 and spacer layer 314 in Fig 3A) followed by depositing a disk directly onto an exposed surface of the peg (see NFT disc 322 in Fig 3B that is deposited directly on an exposed surface of the peg 321, i.e. on an end surface of the peg 321; Para 0039)
At the time the application was filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill it the art to have modified the above combination of Cheng and Sachet so as to directly deposit a disk directly onto an exposed surface of the peg as taught by Zhou. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the order and/or location of depositing different parts of a deposited alloy for a NFT would have been an obvious design choice to one of ordinary skill in the art since there are only so many options/combinations for forming/depositing the NFT comprising the peg and disk structure and since it has been held that a mere change in shape of configuration is nothing more than one of numerous shapes or configurations that one of ordinary skill in the art would find obvious to provide based on the suitability for the intended final application; the obvious advantage being that this would allow for the shape or the peg and/or the disk to be more carefully controlled since there would be different deposition steps for the peg and disk respectively in addition to ensuring that the disk is in physical/electrical contact with the peg as would be generally understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.
As per claim 6, Cheng and Sachet discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 4, but Cheng does not disclose the peg has an exposed surface where a cladding layer is directly deposited onto the exposed surface.
Zhou discloses a similar method of manufacturing a near-field transistor (see NFT 112 in Fig 1; see NFT comprising peg 231 and disc 232 in Fig 2) for a heat assisted magnetic recording head (see HAMR slider 100 in Fig 1; see magnetic recording apparatus 200 in Fig 2), wherein a peg (see NFT peg 321 in Fig 3A) is deposited on a waveguide (see waveguide core layer 312 and spacer layer 314 in Fig 3A) followed by depositing a cladding layer (see dielectric insulating layer 316 in Fig 3C) directly onto an exposed surface of the peg.
At the time the application was filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill it the art to have modified the above combination of Cheng and Sachet so as to directly deposit aa cladding layer onto the exposed surface of the peg as taught by Zhou. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the order and/or location of depositing different parts of a NFT would have been an obvious design choice to one of ordinary skill in the art since there are only so many options/combinations for forming/depositing the components of the NFT and since it has been held that a mere change in shape of configuration is nothing more than one of numerous shapes or configurations that one of ordinary skill in the art would find obvious to provide based on the suitability for the intended final application; the obvious advantage being that the cladding layer would provide an insulating layer on the NFT that could prevent potential shorting issues with other conductive components as would be generally understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.
As per claim 8, Cheng and Sachet discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 7, but Cheng does not disclose that the first feature is the peg wherein the disk is deposited on an exposed surface of the peg.
Zhou discloses a similar method of manufacturing a near-field transistor (see NFT 112 in Fig 1; see NFT comprising peg 231 and disc 232 in Fig 2) for a heat assisted magnetic recording head (see HAMR slider 100 in Fig 1; see magnetic recording apparatus 200 in Fig 2), wherein a peg (see NFT peg 321 in Fig 3A) is deposited on a waveguide (see waveguide core layer 312 and spacer layer 314 in Fig 3A) followed by depositing a cladding layer (see dielectric insulating layer 316 in Fig 3C) directly onto an exposed surface of the peg.
At the time the application was filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill it the art to have modified the above combination of Cheng and Sachet so as to deposit a disk directly onto an exposed surface of the peg as taught by Zhou. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the order and/or location of depositing different parts of a deposited alloy for a NFT would have been an obvious design choice to one of ordinary skill in the art since there are only so many options/combinations for forming/depositing the NFT comprising the peg and disk structure and since it has been held that a mere change in shape of configuration is nothing more than one of numerous shapes or configurations that one of ordinary skill in the art would find obvious to provide based on the suitability for the intended final application; the obvious advantage being that this would allow for the shape or the peg and/or the disk to be more carefully controlled since there would be different deposition steps for the peg and disk respectively in addition to ensuring that the disk is in physical/electrical contact with the peg as would be generally understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Claims 11-13 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2014/0376352 to Cheng and US 2018/0350922 to Sachet in view of US 6,454,913 to Rasmussen.
As per claims 11-13, Cheng and Sachet discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1, but Cheng and Sachet do not explicitly disclose a step of elevating a temperature of the substrate for a specific soak time of 2 minutes to 15 minutes and/or 5 minutes to 10 minutes respectively as claimed. However, it would be inherent and/or obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the step of heating the substrate using the heated support (Para 0050) would involve some form of a soak time, i.e. a time required to bring the temperature of the substrate to the desired temperature, a time between bringing the temperature of the substrate to the desired temperature and starting the deposition process, etc.
Rasmussen discloses a similar sputtering deposition method wherein before the deposition process, the temperature of the substrate is brought to a pre-sputtering of about around 450 °C and soaked at that temperature for about 10 minutes (which as best understood, meets both the 2-15 minute and the 5-10 minute limitations respectively) before starting the deposition process (see Fig 1) in order to bring the temperature of the substrate to a temperature high enough to induce in-situ crystallization and produce deposited material with improved roughness and shape memory properties (Col 3 line 52 – Col 4 line 2, Col 6 line 55-66).
At the time the application was filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill it the art to have modified the above combination of Cheng and Sachet so as to elevate the temperature of the substrate for a soak time from 2 minutes to and/or 5 minutes to 10 minutes respectively as disclosed by Rasmussen. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the amount of time a substrate is soaked at an elevated temperature would have been an obvious design choice to one of ordinary skill in the art since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges of the times involves only ordinary skill in the art, and therefore it would have been an obvious design choice for one of ordinary skill in the art to choose a soak time between 2 minutes to and/or 5 minutes to 10 minutes respectively based on its suitability for the intended final application; the obvious advantage being that this would allow for the temperature of the substrate to be high enough to induce in-situ crystallization resulting in deposited material with improved roughness and shape memory properties (Rasmussen: Col 3 line 52 – Col 4 line 2, Col 6 line 55-66).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11/25/2025 with respect to the rejection of claim 1 under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2014/0376352 to Cheng in view of US 2018/0350922 to Sachet have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The applicants argue that the Cheng reference teaches away from processes that or techniques that would result in the formation of clusters of alloy metal atoms in the bulk of the grains, instead the preferred method of the Cheng reference involves forming alloyed NFTs by depositing a primary element of the alloy and later implanting a secondary element into the deposited film which results in the alloying metal being adsorbed at grain boundaries.
As an initial matter, the applicants are arguing that the Cheng reference does not disclose that the secondary element, i.e. alloying metal as claimed, is located at the grain boundaries rather than the bulk of the grains; however claim 1 does not specifically recite that the alloying metal is located in the bulk of the grains or that the alloying metal is not located at grain boundaries. Rather, claim 1 only recites “formation of clusters of atoms of the alloying metal within the grains of the plasmonic metal”; therefore the alloying metal could be located within the bulk of the grains or a at the grain boundaries and still be “within the grains” as claimed. Further, the current application discloses that the alloying metal can be located at grain boundaries to slow movement of the grain boundary by increasing the drag force on the grain boundary through the binding potential and elastic strain interaction of the alloying metal atom with the grain boundary (see Para 0043 of the specification as originally filed); therefore the alloying metal specifically being in the bulk of the grain as argued does not appear to be critical to the invention. Furthermore, the Cheng reference specifically describes that the secondary atoms, i.e. alloying metal as claimed, can be located in both the bulk of the primary metal and at the grain boundaries of the primary metal (see Para 0054 and 0084). Therefore this argument is not persuasive.
As for the applicants’ argument that the preferred method of the Cheng reference is to form alloyed NFTs by depositing a primary element of the alloy and later implanting a secondary element into the deposited film, this argument is not persuasive and was addressed in the previous office actions and will be reproduced here. Specifically, the Cheng reference explicitly discloses in that the alloyed NFTs can be made by a variety of techniques according the disclosed invention, i.e. different embodiments, those variety of techniques including sputtering from a single alloy target and co-sputtering from multiple targets as specifically discussed in Para 0050 and 0101-0102, and both of these sputtering techniques which would specifically simultaneously deposit the plasmonic metal and the alloying metal directly onto the same exposed surface of the heat assisted magnetic recording head as claimed; and even through the Cheng reference also discloses other techniques/embodiments including diffusion from ion implantation in Para 0107-0109 which can have an advantage over prior art sputtering techniques, that does not mean that the invention as a whole of Cheng teaches away from sputtering or that the ion implantation technique is the preferred technique because Cheng explicitly discloses that a method of the invention can include sputtering or co-sputtering as discussed in Para 0050 and 0101-0102; and the Cheng reference does not disclose that the ion implantation method is advantageous over the first embodiment including sputtering or co-sputtering and an annealing step “to drive the secondary element from the interior of the grain to the grain boundary”, whereas Para 0108 discusses the advantages of ion implantation over “conventional sputtering techniques” as can be seen in Paragraph 0108 rather than the first embodiment including the annealing step; therefore this argument is not persuasive. Furthermore, Para 0102 of the Cheng reference discloses that the annealing step of the sputtering/co-sputtering embodiment has a distinct advantage that “The annealing step providing better properties to the NFT material can be advantageous because the entire device may require an annealing step.”; therefore if the disclosure of the Cheng reference was interpreted as the applicants have in their arguments, it could be concluded that the preferred method of the Cheng reference is the sputtering/co-sputtering embodiment with an annealing step to provide better properties for the NFT material while simultaneously taking care of a required annealing step of the entire device. Therefore this argument is not persuasive.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Joshua D. Anderson, whose telephone number is (571) 270-0157. The examiner can normally be reached from Monday to Friday between 7 AM and 1 PM Arizona time.
If any attempt to reach the examiner by telephone is unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas Hong, can be reached at (571) 272-0993.
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Applicants are invited to contact the Office to schedule an in-person interview to discuss and resolve the issues set forth in this Office Action. Although an interview is not required, the Office believes that an interview can be of use to resolve any issues related to a patent application in an efficient and prompt manner.
/JOSHUA D ANDERSON/
Examiner, Art Unit 3729
/THOMAS J HONG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3729