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 .
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, “a pair of intersecting band features, each band feature being formed from two parallel lines“ 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.
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) 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Savenije (Savenije, Joran, Temperature Measurement of the Thermionic Electron Emitter, 2020, Eindhoven University of Technology, CQT 2020-01-45 ECTS, pp 1-61) in view of Saruwatari (Saruwatari, K, et al, Crystal Orientation Analyses of biominerals using Kikuchi patterns in TEM, 2008, Journal of Mineralogical and Petrological Sciences, Vol 103, pp 16-22).
Regarding claim 1, Savenije teaches a method comprising:
heating a thermionic electron emitter to an emission temperature thereby causing the thermionic electron emitter to emit electrons (page 10, para. 3);
forming the electrons emitted by the thermionic electron emitter into an electron beam (page 10, para. 1; page 11, para. 1);
directing the electron beam to an image detector thereby forming an image corresponding to electron emission from a surface of the thermionic electron emitter (imaged with a charge-coupled device camera; page 15, para. 4; page 21, para. 2).
Savenije fails to specifically teach a step of detecting a presence or absence in the image of a pair of intersecting band features, each band feature being formed from two parallel lines, the band features corresponding to crystal lattice planes of the thermionic electron emitter,
wherein the presence of the pair of intersecting band features indicates a single-crystal thermionic electron emitter,
wherein the absence of the pair of intersecting band features indicates an amorphous or contaminated thermionic emitter, and
wherein the presence of more than a single pair of intersecting band features indicates a polycrystalline thermionic electron emitter.
Saruwatari teaches a method of imaging crystal orientation in biominerals to obtain Kikuchi band features (a pair of intersecting band features shown in Fig. 1(b), each band feature being formed from two parallel lines, the band features corresponding to crystal lattice planes; page 16, para 3). Saruwatari further teaches that the Kikuchi bands observation allows for identification of crystalline phase or polymorph (page 16, para 3), and an example is the identification of a single crystal structure (page 21, para. 4).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing of the claimed invention to modify Savenije’s method so as to additionally observe the imaged electron emission for presence or absence of a pair of intersecting band features, each band feature being formed from two parallel lines, the band features corresponding to crystal lattice planes of the thermionic electron emitter, because the Kikuchi bands observation allows for identification of crystalline phase or polymorph, so that an user may determine if Saveniji’s thermionic electron emitter is a single-crystal, amorphous or contaminated, or polycrystalline, therefore enabling the determination of the quality of the sample.
Regarding claim 2, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the thermionic electron emitter is lanthanum hexaboride or cerium hexaboride (page 10, para. 3).
Regarding claim 3, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the thermionic electron emitter does not have a space charge cloud around the thermionic electron emitter during the step of the heating (page 21, para. 2).
Regarding claim 4, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising applying a voltage to the thermionic electron emitter (page 8, para. 3).
Regarding claim 5, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 4, wherein an electric field strength at the surface of the electron emitter has a magnitude from 0 V/mm to less than 450 V/mm (Savenije Fig. 2.2).
Regarding claim 6, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the forming comprises accelerating the electrons emitted by the thermionic electron emitter (page 2, para. 4).
Regarding claim 7, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the forming comprises guiding the electrons emitted by the thermionic electron emitter with at least one electromagnetic lens (Savenije Fig. 2.8).
Regarding claim 8, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the forming comprises collecting at least 90% of the electrons emitted by the thermionic electron emitter into the electron beam (page 43, para. 5).
Regarding claim 9, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the surface of the thermionic electron emitter has a (100) orientation (page 30, para. 1).
Regarding claim 10, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the intersecting band features are straight (Saruwatari; Fig. 1(b)).
Regarding claim 11, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the intersecting band features have an intersection angle of 75 degrees to 105 degrees (Saruwatari; Figs. 1(a) and 1(b)).
Regarding claim 12, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the emission temperature is 1600 K to 1800 K (Savenije Fig. 2.1).
Regarding claim 13, Savenije in view of Saruwatari teaches the method of claim 1, but fails to further teach that the image corresponding to emission from the surface of the thermionic electron emitter has a magnification of 1X to 16X. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing of the claimed invention to incorporate such magnification value in the art because a 1X magnification is known and used in the art, as shown by evidentiary reference: Hiruma (JP 2726425 B2).
Conclusion
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/HSIEN C TSAI/Examiner, Art Unit 2881 /MICHAEL J LOGIE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2881