DETAILED ACTION
Applicant’s Response
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 February 2, 2026, has been entered.
Claims 1-2, 4-5, 8, 16, and 18 are amended; claims 3 and 19 are canceled; claims 20 and 21 are new.
The applicant contends that the cited prior art – Kim, namely -- does not disclose the new material of a “diffusion lens that distributes the laser beam to form a diffused laser beam,” as claim 1 now recites (p. 15).
In response, the examiner accepts this characterization, as Kim does not depict the internal mechanisms of the laser emitter. The previous 103 rejections have been withdrawn but, subsequent further search, new rejections have been applied below, accordingly. In addition, the examiner observes that the crux of Applicant’s invention seems to be the capacity to simultaneously provide two substrates to corresponding cooling plates within the same chamber, whereby both the upper and lower cooling zones comprise dedicated holding and gap determination means. Codifying these concepts into claim 1 would make substantial progress towards allowance.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) because the claim limitations use generic placeholders – “device” and “mechanism,” in this case – that are coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitations are:
The “substrate holding mechanism” of claims 1-2, 5, 8-9, 12-13, and 15;
The “substrate transfer device” of claim 14.
Because these claim limitation(s) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f), they are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
The substrate holding mechanism (103) will be interpreted as a holder in accordance with paragraph [0032] of Applicant’s specification;
The substrate transfer device (36) will be interpreted as a robot with an arm (42) in accordance with paragraph [0022].
If applicant does not intend to have these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f), applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f).
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 1-2, 4-7, 9-13, and 20-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hongo, US 2004/0237896, in view of Kim, KR 970052671, whereby the applicant has furnished a translation, Akaike et al., US 5,820,648, and Barth et al., US 2010/0314076.
Claims 1, 4-7: Hongo discloses a substrate cooling unit, comprising:
A holder (374), i.e., the “substrate holding mechanism,” that holds a substrate (W) horizontally (Fig. 15);
A driver that raises and lowers the holding mechanism [0139];
A cooling plate (372) having a surface facing the substrate held by the substrate holding mechanism.
Although Hongo specifies a target distance between the facing surfaces of the cooling plate and substrate, respectively, the reference does not provide an optical means by which to confirm that said target distance has, in fact, been attained [0139]. In supplementation, Kim disposes a laser emitter (20) at one side of a substrate and a laser receiver (30) on the other side, whereby laser beams are emitted from the emitter to the receiver in a direction parallel to the substrate surface (Fig. 1). The lowermost beam corresponds to the position of the substrate’s facing surface, and when an object occludes the transmission of an upper beam, a calculator (40) avails this position-specifying information to determine the distance between the facing surface and the superjacent object. Because Hongo has already demonstrated a need to precisely regulate the distance between the substrate and cooling plate, it would have been obvious to incorporate Kim’s laser mechanism and calculator within Hongo’s apparatus to promote this imperative.
Of course, Kim monitors a substrate’s distance to a brush rather than to a cooling plate. However, one of ordinary skill would understand that the operation of Kim’s laser mechanism is indifferent to the type of object which comes to occlude the transmission path and, therefore, would not be dissuaded as to Kim’s relevance vis-à-vis the objective of gap determination.
Because Kim is silent regarding the internal mechanisms of the laser emitter, the means employed to widen the laser beam in the vertical direction to occupy the entire gap between the substrate and brush are unknown. Akaike, alternatively, directs a laser oscillator (5) towards a target area of a substrate yet inserts a diffusion lens (6) into the laser’s path to widen its extent of incidence. By widening the beam, the light irradiates across the substrate’s entire work area rather at just a single point, thereby increasing efficiency (4, 9-57; Fig. 1). Because Kim also seeks to widen the point source of a laser beam, it would have been obvious to avail a diffusion lens to satisfy this imperative given the art-recognized suitability of this technique.
Lastly, concerning the final paragraph of claim 1, Hongo appears to provide only a lower cooling plate, but Barth discloses a cooling chamber with plates (3, 8) situated both above and below the substrate (1) in order to accelerate temperature reduction ([0025]; Fig. 1). It would have been obvious to integrate a second cooling plate within Hongo’s system since applying a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way is within the scope of ordinary skill.
Claim 2: As shown by Kim’s drawing, the emitted beam has a predetermined vertical extent, i.e., “width.”
Claim 9: Hongo raises the substrate to a predetermined position abutting the cooling plate at a specified distance for a given period of time [0139].
Claim 10: The mere replication of a given act is within the scope of ordinary skill, as it has been held that mere duplication of the essential parts of a device involves only routine skill in the art (St. Regis Paper Co. v. Bemis Co., 193 USPQ 8).
Claim 11: Given the operation of Kim’s laser mechanism, it would be capable of determining the distance between a warped section of substrate and the cooling plate – it has been held that a recitation drawn to the intended manner of employing a claimed apparatus does not differentiate said apparatus from a prior art apparatus satisfying the claimed structural limitations (Ex parte Masham, 2 USPQ2d 1647 (1987)).
Claims 12-13: Hongo specifies a target range pertaining to the gap distance, and the apparatus is capable of adjusting the substrate’s position to achieve a value within the specified range.
Claim 20: Barth contemplates a refrigerant flow path formed within a cooling plate (claim 6).
Claim 21: This limitation is directed to the intended use of the apparatus, where the prior art must merely demonstrate the structural capacity to reproduce any functional recitations in order to satisfy the threshold for rejection – it has been held that a recitation drawn to the intended manner of employing a claimed apparatus does not differentiate said apparatus from a prior art apparatus satisfying the claimed structural limitations (Ex parte Masham, 2 USPQ2d 1647 (1987)). The operator can simply control the Hongo’s driver to establish a gap within the claimed range.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hongo in view of Kim, Akaike, and Barth, and in further view of Hasegawa et al., US 2010/0024723.
Because Kim’s drawing does not illustrate the chamber body, it is unclear if the emitter and receiver are situated inside or outside of its boundary. Hasegawa, however, situates light emitters (201a, 203a) and receivers (201b, 203b) external to the processing chamber (100) to prevent their potential contamination (Fig. 18; [0113]). For at least this reason, it would have been obvious to orient Kim’s laser devices external to the chamber boundary, as availing a predictable solution with a reasonable expectation of success is within the scope ordinary skill.
Claims 14 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hongo in view of Kim, Akaike, and Barth, and in further view of Carcasi, US 2009/0246723.
The rejection of claim 1 addresses the portion of this claim directed to the cooling unit. In addition, Carcasi discloses a substrate processing apparatus comprising a substrate cooling unit (220a) along with an adjacent processing chamber (230a) that heats the substrate (Fig. 8B). A substrate transfer arm conveys the substrate between the processing chamber and the cooling unit [0052-53].
Conclusion
The following prior art is made of record as being pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure, yet is not formally relied upon: Ayers, US 5,163,312. Ayers provides a substrate holding mechanism (15) that holds a substrate (11) horizontally, a driver (17) that raises and lowers the holding mechanism, and a cooling plate (12) having a surface facing a surface of the substrate held by the substrate holding mechanism (Fig. 1).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NATHAN K FORD whose telephone number is (571)270-1880. The examiner can normally be reached on 11-7:30 PM. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Parviz Hassanzadeh, can be reached at 571 272 1435. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571 273 8300.
/N. K. F./
Examiner, Art Unit 1716
/KARLA A MOORE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1716