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 .
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 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.
Response to Amendment
Applicant's amendment to the claims, filed on February 2nd, 2026, is acknowledged. Entry of amendment is accepted and made of record.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election without traverse of Group II (claims 9-12 and 4-6) in the reply filed on February 2nd, 2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 1-3 and 7-8 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Group I, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Claim Objections
Claims 4, 9 and 12 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 4 recites “the body region” in lines 1-2 refers back to “a plurality of body regions” in line 2 of claim 9 and should be amended to “the plurality of body regions” for avoiding confusion. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 9 recites parameter “WS” in line 3 without reciting what kind of dimension WS supposed to be. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 9 recites “the body region” in line 8 refers back to “a plurality of body regions” in line 2 and should be amended to “the plurality of body regions” for avoiding confusion. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 9 recites “the body region” in line 19 refers back to “a plurality of body regions” in line 2 and should be amended to “the plurality of body regions” for avoiding confusion. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 9 recites “since” in line 21, “even” in line 22 and “because” in line 23 and “always” in line 24 causing confusion within the limitation. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 12 recites “the limit value” in line 3 refers back to “a preset limit value” in line 2 and should be amended to “the preset limit value”.
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.
Claims 4-6 and 9-12 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 9 recites “contact their side surfaces” in line 7. It is unclear to the examiner which side surfaces the limitation referring to.
Claim 9 recite redundant “a first mask” in line 11 because claim 9 already recites “a first mask” in line 5.
Claim 9 recites the limitation “the separation width WS” in line 12. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 9 recites “an overlap length OL1 with adjacent body region” in line 15 and “an overlap length OL2 with adjacent body region” in line 16. It is unclear to the examiner how can two overlap lengths OL1 and OL2 are formed with the same adjacent body region.
Claim 9 recites “a width length WS + OL1 + OL2” in line 17. It is unclear to the examiner if the limitation refers to a dimension of a width or a length, and it is unclear to determine the value of the dimension as the total of WS, OL1 and OL2 or something else.
Claim 9 recites “that does not overlap” in line 20 as incomplete structure and it is unclear to the examiner how to determine what structure does not overlap.
Claim 11 recites the limitation “the doses” in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 11 recites the limitation “a relationship of low resistance region = source region > body region > JFET region” in line 1. It is unclear to the examiner what relationship that is being satisfied for the above condition, and it is unclear how can the comparison is being used in the limitation above.
Claim 12 recites “wherein each of the overlap lengths OL1 and OL2 is a value within a range from 0 to a preset limit value”. if the overlap length OL1 and OL2 sets to be 0, then there would be no overlapping which contradicting limitations of claim 9.
Claims 4-6 and 10-12 are rejected for depending claim 9 and having the above issues incorporated into the claims.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6 and 9-12 would be allowed if rewritten to overcome the objections under formalities and the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112, set forth in this Office action.
The following is an examiner' s statement of reason for allowance: the prior art made of record does not teach or fairly suggest the following:
Regarding claim 9, Ohashi et al. (Patent. No.: US 11,489,046) discloses A method of manufacturing a power semiconductor device, comprising:(a) forming a plurality of body regions of a second conductivity type (26a-26d) to be spaced apart from each other with a preset Ws in a horizontal direction in an upper region of a drift region (24) epitaxially grown on a silicon carbide substrate of a first conductivity type (22) (see Figs. 5-6);(b) forming a low- resistance region of the first conductivity type (38) in an upper region of a separation space between adjacent body regions to contact their side surfaces with the adjacent body regions and forming a source region of the first conductivity type (28a-28d) in a surface region in the body region in contact with the low-resistance region to be spaced apart from the low-resistance region by a preset channel length (see Fig. 1 and 7); and(c) forming, by the ion implant of the first conductivity type with a first mask (61), a JFET region of the first conductivity type (36a) with a width of the separation width Ws in a lower region of the separation space (see Figs. 12-15, column 3, line 30 through column 16, line 19).
Ohashi et al. fails to disclose wherein in (b), the low-resistance region form an overlap region in a lateral direction by an overlap length OL1 with adjacent body region in a first direction, forms with an overlap region in the lateral direction by an overlap length OL2 with adjacent body region in a second direction opposite to the first direction so as to be formed with a width length Ws + OL1 + OL2,wherein an ion implant concentration in (c) is set relatively lower than an ion implant concentration of the body region so that the body region is maintained at a lower region of the source region and a lower portion of the low-resistance region that does not overlap, wherein since the source region and the low-resistance region are formed using the first mask, even when overlap lengths of both sides of the low-resistance region do not match each other because the source region and the body region are misaligned, the channel length between the low-resistance region and the source regions on both sides is always constant.
Claims 2-3, and 7-13 depend on claim 1, and therefore also include said claimed limitation.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CUONG B NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-1509 (Email: CuongB.Nguyen@uspto.gov). The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:30 AM-5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.
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/CUONG B NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2818