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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claim 20 is withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected group II, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 12/01/2025.
Examiner note
From context it appears that claim 12 may have intended to depend from claim 11, i.e. “further comprising … a second valve block” when the first valve block was claimed in claim 11 and is not present in claim 10. This is not an issue under 35 USC §112 as Applicant is entitled to be their own lexicographer and claim elements are not required to be presented in sequential numeric order. The Examiner is only bringing this to Applicant’s attention in the case it was inadvertent.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the gap between the manifold and the heater block as claimed in claim 2 must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
The drawings are objected to because in Figure 1, those reference numerals without lead lines must be underlined (37CFR1.84(q)) and because in Figures 2, 3, and 5 no reference numeral can be placed within brackets (37CFR1.84(p)(1)). Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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, 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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5, 7, 10-15 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2001/0035127 to Metzner in view of US 2022/0199443 to Takebayashi et al
Regarding claims 1, 2, 10, 13 and 14
Metzner discloses: A semiconductor processing device, comprising: a manifold body (surfaces comprising the open manifold structures of Fig. 14 including the internal bores and split fluid paths ) comprising a first material (as this limitation is not restrictive whatever material the body is made out of may be considered the “first material”), the manifold body comprising: a bore (231, 293) extending along a longitudinal axis of the manifold body (Fig. 14); a first supply channel (237) configured to supply a first vaporized reactant to the bore (¶ [0078]); and an outlet at a lower end of the bore (Fig. 14); and a heater block (264) formed around the manifold (Fig. 15), the heater block to transfer heat to the manifold body (¶ [0080]), the heater block comprising a second material different from the first material (the heater blocks comprise both the metal forming the manifold, but also the materials of the heating element which is “firerod” as disclosed in ¶ [0080]; as to whether the materials are “different” – logically they must be different compositions, but this of course does not meet the burden of inherency – however, it is known that the heating element is designed to supply heat as described in ¶ [0080] and the manifold has no such internal heater; this at least provides functional and design differences, such as current paths, for the second material differentiating it from the first). And a second heater block mechanically coupled to an outer surface of the manifold body (Fig. 15, it is an arbitrary matter to interpret the block heaters in this manner, e.g. those in 272 are the “first heaters” and those in 262 are the “second heaters”) that is opposite the first outer surface (Fig. 15, see two groups of three heaters 264 arranged on opposing end blocks), the second heater block to transfer heat to the manifold body (Figs. 14 and 15). Wherein each of the first and second heater blocks comprises a heating element (in the embodiment of Fig. 3 there are multiple “firerod” elements 264 in each of the heater groups).
Metzner fails to teach that the heater block is mechanically coupled to an outer surface of the manifold body. Instead Metzner teaches that the manifold body is formed integrally in the heater block. The Examiner believes that interpreting such an integral formation as “coupling” is overly broad in view of Applicant’s specification. Adopting this definition it then naturally flows that Metzner cannot teach the first and/or second heater block is detachably mounted on the manifold body with a gap therebetween.
However, it is known in the art to provide the heater and manifold structure separately with a heater block provided around the manifold with a gap. One such example is Takebayashi which teaches a heater block (101) that is coupled to the manifold body (110 ¶ [0022]) with a gap therebetween (Fig. 10).
As such it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Metzner such that the internal manifold structures were formed separately from the heater blocks with a gap and subsequently coupled together, as this is a known method of providing process gas heating in semiconductor operations and would have yielded only the predictable result of a heater and manifold capable of heating process streams as required in a semiconductor process.
Regarding claims 3 and 15
Metzner as modified – in the embodiments of Figs. 14 and 15 - teaches all of the limitations as discussed above, but fails to specifically teach wherein the manifold body comprises a top rectangular parallelepiped portion and a bottom cylindrical portion and wherein the bottom cylindrical portion comprises a pipe member forming a portion of the bore and coupled to a bottom surface of the top rectangular parallelepiped portion.
Metzner does teach in an embodiment representative of the prior art a manifold body (270, 205, 210) having a top rectangular paralleleped portion (Fig. 16, at least portions of 270, 205 and 210 would qualify as a parallelepiped, for example 205 and 210 appear to be rectangular cuboids) and a bottom cylindrical portion (418) wherein the bottom cylindrical portion comprises a pipe member (Fig. 16, 418 is a pipe) forming a portion of the bore (229 is formed at the bottom by pipe 418) and coupled to a bottom surface of the top rectangular parallelepiped portion (Fig. 16).
Regarding claims 5 and 17
Metzner as modified teaches all of the limitations as discussed above, but fails to specifically teach wherein a thermal conductivity of the first/second heater blocks is higher than that of the manifold body.
However, there are only three possible options for this arrangement the thermal conductivity of the heater block could be higher, lower, or equal to tat of the manifold body. As such it would have been an obvious matter, obvious to try, to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have the thermal conductivity of the first/second heater block higher than that of the manifold body as there would have been a recognized problem to solve, that is distributing heat properly between heated and unheated component and there are a finite number of identified predictable solutions (that is by having a greater/less/equal thermal coefficient of the heater block) and one of ordinary skill in the art could have pursued these solutions with a reasonable expectation of success as the differing thermal properties of materials are well specified and their effect on heat transfer well modeled.
Regarding claims 7, 11 and 12
Metzner as modified teaches all of the limitations as claimed above, but does not teach a valve block connected to the first supply channel or a second supply channel configured to supply a second vaporized reactant to the bore, wherein the manifold body is configured to connect to a second valve block to fluidly connect with the second supply channel. However, as Metzner already teaches a first supply channel in this capacity (see mapping above) and teaches a valve block (545) – and as the function of valves and supply channels are well understood in the art and they are used in their typical capacity, to restrict or change and provide flow in Metzner, and further Applicant is not claiming a synergestic or unexpected result with the claimed valve or second supply channel, it would have been an obvious duplication of parts to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to provide duplicate valve blocks in Metzner to connect to the first supply channel and a duplicated second supply channel. Note that it has been held that when the difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is only the duplication of structure without changing the function of said structure or otherwise alleging an unexpected or synergistic result a finding of prima facie obviousness is appropriate.
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Metzner and Takebayashi et al in further view of US 2003/0101938 to Rouse et al.
Metzner as modified teaches all of the limitations as discussed above, but is silent as to the materials of the manifold and heater block thus fails to teach wherein the first material comprises a nickel-based alloy and the second material comprises aluminum.
Rouse is in the same field of endeavor and teaches a first material for manifold construction comprising nickel alloy (¶ [0094]) and a second material for a heated component (lid, equivalent to heater block, ¶ [0096]) made of aluminum.
As such it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to further modify Metzner such that the first material is nickel alloy and the second material is aluminum, as taught by Rouse, as it has been held that when the difference between the prior art and claimed invention is nothing more than the recitation of materials known in the art to be suitable for the claimed purpose a finding of prima facie obviousness is appropriate (see MPEP §2144.07).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 8, 9, 16 and 18-19 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.
Regarding claims 4 and 16, Applicant does not provide a purported advantage for the shape of the manifold block in the parallelepiped/cylinder arrangement, but does provide an advantage for this shape in the context of the parallelepiped cylinder and heater block ledge. As such there is no reason to modify the prior art to arrive at this specific shape absent impermissible hindsight.
Regarding claims 8,9 and 18-19 the prior art does not teach the valve and seal arrangement as specifically claimed.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WOODY A LEE JR whose telephone number is (571)272-1051. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 0800-1630.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Edward "Ned" Landrum can be reached at 571-272-5567. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WOODY A LEE JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3761