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 § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-6, 8, 11-12 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee (US Pat. 7,579,308) in view of Shimada (CN 105210176 A).
Regarding claims 1-3,11-12 and 15: Lee teaches the basic claimed photoresist cleaning composition (1:30-37, 4:19-25), comprising: an organic polar solvent (8:50-60); tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (6:30-65); an amine compound (8:50-9:20); and a compound of the general class (9:35-62) shown below,
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Furthermore, Lee does not teach the presence of an inorganic salt.
Lee does not specifically teach a compound as recited by instant Formula 1 wherein it is a pyrazole with a pendant R group having an R1 or C1-C2 alkyl and R2 of H. However, Shimada teaches 4-methyl pyrazole (pg. 5, elements 3 and 7). Lee and Shimada are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, namely, semiconductor cleaning compositions. At the time of filing, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to have used 4-methyl pyrazole, either in addition or substitute to “the compounds of the general class”, in the cleaning composition of Lee, because Shimada suggests that 4-methyl pyrazole is a functional equivalent compound for the purpose of cleaning a semiconductor.
Regarding claim 4: Lee teaches an organic solvent comprising dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) (8:53-57, 9:20-28).
Regarding claims 5-6: Lee teaches an organic solvent comprising monoethanolamine (MEA) and aminoethyl ethanolamine (AEEA), with a MW of about 104 g/mol (8:53-9:7).
Regarding claim 8: Lee teaches cleaning composition having: an organic solvent in an amount of about 50-90% (11:24-36); tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide in an amount of about 0.4-10% (6:30-65, 10:55-67); a chelating agent (ie. antioxidant) in an amount of 0.1-10% (9:28-62, 11:37-49). Lee further teaches that the composition and amount of organic solvent can be varied depending upon the chemical/physical nature of the material being removed (11:24-36).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, submitted 27-OCT-2025, with respect to the rejections under 35 USC 103 over Lee and Yoon, have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 9-10 and 13-14 have been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments, submitted 27-OCT-2025, with respect to the rejections under 35 USC 103 over Lee and Yoon, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In response to applicant's argument that Lee and Shimada are “not quite aligned” (ie. nonanalogous art), it has been held that a prior art reference must either be in the field of the inventor’s endeavor or, if not, then be reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor was concerned, in order to be relied upon as a basis for rejection of the claimed invention. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 24 USPQ2d 1443 (Fed. Cir. 1992). In this case, both references are directed to semiconductor cleaning compositions. As such, it is reasonable that one of ordinary skill in the art would look to similar cleaning compositions for various ingredients since the materials to be removed and the substrate which may be damaged during cleaning are substantially similar. In this instance, Lee specifically teaches use of a composition reading on the genus of instant formula 1 as a chelating agent (ie. antioxidant). Similarly, Shimada teaches 4-methylpyrazole as an antioxidant. As such, Shimada teaches a specific species of instant formula 1 as being know for essentially the same purpose. Therefore, it is the Office’s position that the rejection is maintained (see MPEP 2144.06).
Furthermore, applicant's argument that the cleaning solutions of the two references are different and therefore Shimada would not provide motivation to modify Lee. Nonetheless, the test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981). As set forth above, Shimada teaches a functionally equivalent antioxidant/chelating agent and as such, the prior art rejection is maintained.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9-10 and 13-14 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Applicant’s arguments submitted 27-OCT-2025, with respect to the rejections under 35 USC 103 over Lee and Yoon, are persuasive.
Furthermore, the prior art of record does not teach or suggest a photoresist cleaning/stripping composition as recited in claim 1 comprising the antioxidant of Formula 2.
Correspondence
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARK EASHOO whose telephone number is (571)272-1197. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 7am - 4pm.
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MARK EASHOO, Ph.D.
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 1767
/MARK EASHOO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1767
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