DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 16-19 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by “Self-Assembly of Parallel Atomic Wires and Periodic Clusters of Silicon on a Vicinal Si(111) Surface,” Sekiguchi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 106101, 2005, as evidenced by “Structural investigation of silicon nanowires using GIXD and GISAXS: Evidence of complex saw-tooth faceting,” David et al., Surface Science 602 (2008), 2675-2680, as set forth in the Office Action of 7-28-2025
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 10-27-2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Regarding the teachings of Sekiguchi, Applicant argues that Sekiguchi does not teach the claimed invention because the product of Sekiguchi features silicon nanowires grown on a silicon substrate via deposition, which differs from the present claims which require the structures to be “formed in the material of the wafer” as recited in claim 16. This is unpersuasive because there is no apparent difference between the structure of the product of Sekiguchi and the product of Applicant’s claim 16, as it is unclear how a product featuring structures grown on the substrate would structurally differ from a product featuring structures that has been formed in the material of the substrate. In each case, the result is a pattern of structures of a particular material on a surface of the same material. To the extent that claim 16 contains limitations related to how the product is made, the claim is a product-by-process claim. Note that product-by-process claims are not limited to the manipulations of the recited steps, and are instead limited only to the structure implied by the steps.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
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/IAN A RUMMEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1785