DETAILED ACTION
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
Applicant's election without traverse of Invention I (claims 1-15) in the reply filed on 02/10/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 16-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to nonelected inventions, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 02/10/2026.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information disclosure statements (IDS) filed on 01/31/2023, 02/05/2024, and 02/12/2024 has/have been acknowledged.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 2-3 and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 2 line 2-3 recites the limitation “on at least another part of the heater heating element”. Claim 4 line 2-3 recites the limitation “on at least another part of the heater heating element”. Claim 5 line 2-3 recites the limitation “on at least another part of the heater heating element”. It is not sufficiently clear from the claim language if these instances of “at least another part” is the same “at least another part” as introduced in claim 1 line 4 or a different part of the heater heating element, thereby rendering the claims indefinite as the metes and bounds of the claim are not sufficiently clear. For the purpose of examination, the examiner interprets these limitations to read as “on the at least another part of the heater heating element”.
Claim 9 line 2-3 recites the limitation “the laser trimming process”. Claim 12 line 1-2 recites the limitation “the laser trimming process”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for a laser trimming process in these claims, thereby rendering the claim indefinite. For the purpose of examination, the examiner interprets these limitation to read as “a laser trimming process”.
Claim 9 line 2-3 recites the limitation “an electrical resistance value of the heater heating element is performed”. It is not sufficiently clear from the claim language in view of the specification what is meant by an electrical resistance value being ‘performed’, thereby rendering the claim indefinite because the metes and bounds of the claim are not sufficiently clear. For the purpose of examination, the examiner interprets this limitation to read as “an electrical resistance value of the heater heating element is measured”.
Claims 3 and 10 are rejected based on their dependence on the above rejected claims.
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 1-10 and 12-15 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2004/0035846 to Hiramatsu in view of JPh10-172741 to Hagimura (translation provided by examiner).
As per claim 1, Hiramatsu discloses a method of manufacturing a heater (see ceramic heater 30 in Fig 5), comprising:
performing a trimming process on at least a part of a heater heating element (see resistance heating elements 12, 12a-g, 12m in Fig 2-3, 5, 11-12) for heating a substrate (see Fig 12; Para 0197-0199, 0227-0234).
As per claim 1, Hiramatsu discloses forming a metal material (see metal covering layer 1200 in Fig 6) on the heater heating elements (12,12a-g, 12m), but does not explicitly disclose in addition to the trimming process, forming a resistance adjusting material layer on at least another part of the heater heating element.
Hagimura discloses a similar method of manufacturing a heater (see sheet heating element in Fig 1 and 4) wherein a resistance adjusting material layer (see resistance value adjusting resistor 40 in Fig 1 and 4) is formed on a part of the heater heating element (see parts of the heat generating resistor 30 in which the resistance value adjusting resistor 40 is printed) to decrease the electrical resistance of that part so that the resistance of the heater heating element can be made more uniform to produce uniform heat (see translation Abstract and Para 0005-0007 and 0032).
At the time the application was filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill it the art to modify the disclosure of Hiramatsu as to add a step of forming a resistance adjusting material layer to another part of the heater heating element as taught by Hagimura. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize both Hiramatsu and Hagimura are directed towards the similar subjects of manufacturing a heater including the adjusting of resistance of parts of the heater to have a more uniform resistance allowing for uniform heating, therefore it would have been a routine matter for one of ordinary skill in the art to look to Hagimura for improvements on Hiramatsu; the obvious advantages of adding the step of forming a resistance adjusting material layer to another part of the heater heating element being that this would allow for the decreasing of the electrical resistance of parts of the heater heating element so that the heat generated by the heater can be made more uniform to increase productivity and decrease material costs (Hagimura: Abstract and Para 0005-0007 and 0032), this combined with the trimming of Hiramatsu which increases the resistance of parts of the heater by removal would allow increased versatility altering the resistance of the heater heating element to ensure that a heater can uniformly generate heat at a desired level as would be generally understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.
As per claims 2-3, Hiramatsu and Hagimura discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Hiramatsu discloses forming a metal material (see metal covering layer 1200 in Fig 6) on the heater heating elements (12,12a-g, 12m) using an electrolytic plating process (Para 0089, 0156). Therefore, it would have been an obvious choice to one of ordinary skill in the art to use an electrolytic plating process as disclosed in Hiramatsu for forming the resistance adjusting material layer on the heater heating element as taught by Hagimura with the reasonable expectation that plating would effectively attach the resistance adjusting material layer to the heater heating element, such that it is possible to reduce the resistance of parts of the heater heating element as taught by Hagimura (see translation Abstract and Para 0005-0007 and 0032).
As per claim 4-5, Hiramatsu and Hagimura discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Hiramatsu discloses depositing a metal material (see metal covering layer 1200 in Fig 6) on the heater heating elements (12,12a-g, 12m) using a sputtering process (Para 0089, 0156); and Hagimura further discloses the forming of the resistance adjusting material layer comprises performing a printing deposition process on the at least another part of the heater heating element (see translation Page 4 Para 4).
As per claim 6, Hiramatsu and Hagimura discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Hagimura further discloses that the resistance adjusting material layer is made of the same material as a material constituting the heater heating element (see translation Page 4 Para 14).
As per claim 7, Hiramatsu and Hagimura discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Hagimura further discloses that the resistance adjusting material layer is a material layer comprising at least some elements of a compound constituting the heater heating element (see translation Page 4 Para 14).
As per claim 8, Hiramatsu and Hagimura discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Hiramatsu further discloses that before the trimming operation, temperature measuring elements are formed in the heater so that the temperature can be controlled (Para 0089, 0181, 0221) and describes a specific instance of measuring the heat generated by the heat heating element using these temperature measuring elements for determining evenness of the temperature (Para 0330-0332), and that before performing the trimming process, resistances of the heater heating element are measured and then performing the trimming process on the basis of the measured amount of heat (Para 0201-0204); and Hagimura further discloses that before performing the resistance material adjusting material forming process, a resistance of the heater heating element is measured and then forming the resistance adjusting material layer on the basis of the measured amount of heat (see translation Abstract, Para 0007, Page 4 Para 3-4). Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to measure the temperature instead of resistance for the basis of the trimming process and resistance adjusting material layer forming process since temperature measuring elements are already provided in the heater as disclosed in Hiramatsu (Para 0089, 0181, 0221) and this would prevent the need for extra resistance measuring equipment which would increase costs as would be generally understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.
As per claim 9-10, Hiramatsu and Hagimura discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 8. Hiramatsu further discloses that a laser trimming process is performed on a first region of the heater heating element in which the resistance is measured to be relatively lower than a desired amount to increase the resistance/heat generation so that the resistance and heat generation of the heater can be made consistent (Para 0197-0200, 0204-0207, 0230-0239), and Hagimura discloses that the resistance adjusting material layer is formed on a second region of the heater heating element in which the resistance is measured to be relatively lower than a desired amount to decrease the resistance/heat generation so that the resistance and heat generation of the heater can be made consistent (see translation Abstract and Para 0005-0007 and 0032), and it was already discussed above in claim 8 how it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to change measuring resistance to measuring heat generated for the trimming operation and the resistance adjusting material layer forming process, and further it is well understood in the art that increasing resistance also increases the heat generated by a heater and decreasing resistance also decreases the heat generated by a heater. Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to perform a laser trimming process on a first region of the heater heating element with less heat generation to increase the resistance/heat generation of the first region and perform the resistance adjusting material layer forming process on a second region of the heater heating element with more heat generation to decrease the resistance/heat generation of the second region in order to make the resistance/heat generation of the heater more consistent as discussed in both Hiramatsu and Hagimura.
As per claim 12, Hiramatsu and Hagimura discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Hiramatsu further discloses that before performing a laser trimming process, an electrical resistance value of the heater heating element is measured, and then, performing the laser trimming process and forming the resistance adjusting material layer are performed on the basis of the electrical resistance value (Para 0201-0204); and Hagimura further discloses that before forming the resistance adjusting material layer, an electrical resistance value of the heater heating element is measured and forming the resistance adjusting material layer are performed on the basis of the electrical resistance value (see translation Abstract, Para 0007, Page 4 Para 3-4).
As per claims 13 and 14, Hiramatsu and Hagimura discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 12.
Hiramatsu further discloses that a laser trimming process is performed on a first region of the heater heating element in which the resistance is measured to be relatively lower than a desired amount to increase the resistance/heat generation so that the resistance and heat generation of the heater can be made consistent (Para 0197-0200, 0204-0207, 0230-0239), and Hagimura discloses that the resistance adjusting material layer is formed on a second region of the heater heating element in which the resistance is measured to be relatively lower than a desired amount to decrease the resistance/heat generation so that the resistance and heat generation of the heater can be made consistent (see translation Abstract and Para 0005-0007 and 0032).
As per claim 15, Hiramatsu and Hagimura discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Hiramatsu further discloses that before performing the trimming process the heater heating element is formed using a printed circuit sintering process (Para 0101); and Hagimura further discloses that before forming the resistance adjusting material layer, the heater heating element is formed using a printed circuit sintering process (see translation Page 3 Para 5-10).
Claim 11 is rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2004/0035846 to Hiramatsu and JPh10-172741 to Hagimura (translation provided by examiner) in further view of JP 2001-239689 to Mizuno (translation provided by examiner).
As per claim 11, Hiramatsu and Hagimura discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 8. Hiramatsu and Hagimura both disclose measuring the resistance of the heater heating element, and Hiramatsu discloses temperature measuring elements formed in the heater so that the temperature can be controlled (Para 0089, 0181, 0221), and it was already discussed above in claim 8 how it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to change measuring resistance to measuring heat generated for the trimming operation and the resistance adjusting material layer forming process, but neither Hiramatsu nor Hagimura explicitly disclose using a thermal imaging camera for measuring the heat generated.
Mizuno discloses specifically using an thermal camera (see infrared camera 42 in Fig 6) for evaluating the evenness of heat generation of a heating element so that a trimming operation(using trimming mechanism 33 in Fig 6) can be performed for making the heat generation in the heating element for even and the time required for detecting heat generation unevenness is shortened (see translation Page 9-11).
At the time the application was filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill it the art to modify the above combination of Hiramatsu and Hagimura as to measure the heat generated by the heater heating element using a thermal imaging camera as taught by Mizuno. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that Mizuno and Hiramatsu and Hagimura are all directed towards controlling the evenness of heat generated by a heating element and therefore it would have been a routine matter for one of ordinary skill in the art to look to Mizuno for improvements on Hiramatsu and/or Hagimura; the obvious advantages of using a thermal camera is this would increase the speed at which the heat generation can be measured as taught by Mizuno (Mizuno: see translation Page 11 Para 5).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2020/0000149 discloses a method of using thermal imaging to determine the evenness of heat generated by a heating element.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Joshua D. Anderson, whose telephone number is (571) 270-0157. The examiner can normally be reached from Monday to Friday between 7 AM and 2 PM Arizona time.
If any attempt to reach the examiner by telephone is unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas Hong, can be reached at (571) 272-0993.
Another resource that is available to applicants is the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR). Information regarding the status of an application can be obtained from the (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAX. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, please feel free to contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
Applicants are invited to contact the Office to schedule an in-person interview to discuss and resolve the issues set forth in this Office Action. Although an interview is not required, the Office believes that an interview can be of use to resolve any issues related to a patent application in an efficient and prompt manner.
/JOSHUA D ANDERSON/
Examiner, Art Unit 3729
/THOMAS J HONG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3729
Prosecution Insights