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 .
The RCE filed on 11/06/2025 has been entered and made of record.
The application has pending claims 1, 4, and 7-9.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the amended claims have been considered but are moot because of the new ground rejection of Hisae and Hosoya as detailed below. Thus, the 103 interpretation of ATSUKO, in combination with Hisae and Hosoya, meets each of the new limitations of the claims as disclosed in the rejection below. Therefore, this action is made NON-FINAL.
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.
Claims 1 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over YAMAGUCHI ATSUKO JP-2008116472-A. hereinafter ATSUKO, in further view of Shibuya Hisae US-20040064269-A1, hereinafter Hisae, and Naoki Hosoya US-20030109952-A1, hereinafter Hosoya.
As per claim 1, ATSUKO discloses a charged particle beam image processing device for performing image processing on an observation image generated by a charged particle beam apparatus (see ATSUKO page 2/52, wherein a scanning electron microscope (SEM) is disclosed for predicting electrical characteristics appearing in the SEM image), the charged particle beam image processing device being configured to:extract an edge of a line pattern from an inspection region of the observation image (see ATSUKO page 4/52 and FIG. 1, wherein a pattern edge is disclosed in the pattern area, i.e., inspection region, of the SEM observation image. See further page 13/52, wherein the inspection computer can obtain the edge points);divide the inspection region into sections each having a plurality of measurement points (see ATSUKO page 4/52 and FIG. 1, wherein each region is split into i’s, and the value of wi is measured for each i);measure a line edge roughness in each of the sections and generate distribution data of the line edge roughness in each section (see ATSUKO page 4/52 and FIG. 1, wherein the difference between the straight line and the actual edge point is measured. Each section is measured and line width variation is determined for each i);calculate a line edge roughness in the entire inspection region (see ATSUKO page 5/52 and FIG. 5, wherein the result of measuring roughness is depicted for each measurement interval Δy See also on FIG. 1, wherein Δy separated each section);calculate a theoretical curve of the line edge roughness in each section based on the inspection region (see ATSUKO page 3/52 as well as pages 5-6/52, wherein an approximate curve is calculated in regions L1 and L2 of the inspection region L); anddetermine whether the inspection region is proper based on a comparison between the distribution data and the theoretical curve calculated based on the inspection region (see ATSUKO page 13/52, wherein the curve and the distribution data are used to determine the quality of the inspection target wafer, i.e., determining if the inspection region is proper).
However, ATSUKO fails to explicitly disclose where Hisae teaches:determine whether the inspection region is associated with a proper sampling interval based on a comparison between the distribution data and the theoretical curve calculated based on the inspection region (see Hisae ¶51-58 and FIG. 8, wherein the identification of radial region defects is disclosed. A combinational Hough transform is used to draw a curve, as shown in FIG. 6, which is used in combination with detected peaks of detected defects, as shown in FIG. 7. These defects have a certain width and the resolution of
(
θ
,
ρ
)
is made rough, i.e., the roughness in the line
(
θ
,
ρ
)
is the distribution data. If no defects are detected, the process is ended, i.e., inspection region is proper. The sampling result, in the pattern information as disclosed in ¶108-110, is decided based on the defect analysis described prior in ¶49-51. A proper sampling interval would be a non-review result indicating there are no defects as discussed in ¶111),wherein a determination that the inspection region is proper is based on one of (i) a maximum value of the line edge roughness in the distribution data being between an upper limit value and a lower limit value obtained based on the theoretical curve (see Hisae ¶58-62, wherein the line type defect has a certain width and the resolution of
(
θ
,
ρ
)
, which is the curve as disclosed in FIG. 6, is made rough. Next, a check is made to see if the width of
ρ
is within an upper and lower limit of a predetermined threshold value), or (ii) a correlation coefficient between normalized data, which is normalized such that an area of the distribution data is one, and the theoretical curve being within a predetermined range;
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify ATSUKO’s device by using Hisae’s teaching by including the determination of the inspection region using the theoretical curve of the inspection region in order to further calculate if the wafer contains defects.
However, ATSUKO, in combination with Hisae, fails to explicitly disclose where Hosoya teaches: display whether the sampling interval is sparse or dense in response to a determination that the inspection region is not associated with the proper sampling interval (see Hosoya ¶66-69, wherein a display interface is disclosed. the interface discloses the wafer map and the defects on the wafer, which includes a densely or sparsely distributed cluster of the local sampling defects as disclosed in ¶20-21).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify ATSUKO’s, in combination with Hisae, device by using Hosoya’s teaching by including a display of the sampling interval in order to further present information to the user of the dense or sparse sampling interval.
As per claim 4, ATSUKO, in combination with Hisae and Hosoya, discloses the charged particle beam image processing device according to claim 1, further configured to: calculate the theoretical curve based on the line edge roughness in the entire inspection region and the measurement points (see ATSUKO page 5-6/52 and FIG. 5, wherein the curve is calculated using the roughness and edge point positions with respect to the line length L region (inspection region)).
Claims 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ATSUKO, in combination with Hisae and Hosoya, in further view of TSUNEOKA MASATOSHI JP-2002148031-A, hereinafter MASATOSHI.
As per claim 7, ATSUKO, in combination with Hisae and Hosoya, fails to explicitly disclose where MASATOSHI teaches:The charged particle beam image processing device according to claim 1, further configured to: determine the inspection region is not proper based on determining a maximum value of the line edge roughness is not between an upper limit value and a lower limit value obtained based on the theoretical curve (see MASATOSHI page 3/21, wherein the distance between patterns is determined to be greater or shorter than a predetermined value, i.e., maximum and minimum values, and is thus defected. See also bottom of page 8, wherein a curved line is disclosed).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify ATSUKO’s, in combination with Hisae and Hosoya, by using MASATOSHI’s teaching by a determination that the line is not within the maximum and lower limits to the line edge roughness in order to more accurately determine the threshold values of the defects.
As per claim 8, ATSUKO, in combination with Hisae, Hosoya, and MASATOSHI, discloses the charged particle beam image processing device according to claim 7, further configured to: determine the inspection region is too sparse based on determining the maximum value of the line edge roughness is larger than the upper limit value (see MASATOSHI page 3/21, wherein a sparse defect parameter is used if the distance pattern is greater than a predetermined value, respectively. See additionally, bottom of page 5/21 and top of page 6/21 and FIGS. 3-4, wherein the sparse region is disclosed).
As per claim 9, ATSUKO, in combination with Hisae, Hosoya, and MASATOSHI, discloses the charged particle beam image processing device according to claim 7, further configured to: determine the inspection region is too dense based on determining the maximum value of the line edge roughness is less than the lower limit value (see MASATOSHI page 3/21, wherein a dense a defect parameter is used if the distance pattern is shorter than a predetermined value, respectively. See additionally, bottom of page 5/21 and top of page 6/21 and FIGS. 3-4, wherein the dense region is disclosed).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bradley Obas Felix whose telephone number is (703)756-1314. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 EST.
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/BRADLEY O FELIX/Examiner, Art Unit 2671
/VINCENT RUDOLPH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2671