DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to RCE filed December 16, 2025.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-4, 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventors, at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Regarding claim 1, Applicants originally disclosed in paragraph [0015] of current application that “Next, as shown in FIG. 2, a pattern transfer process is conducted to pattern the hard mask 20 and the p-type semiconductor layer 18 by first using a patterned mask (not shown) as mask to remove part of the hard mask 20 and part of the p-type semiconductor layer 18 for exposing the surface of the first barrier layer 16 adjacent to two sides of the patterned p-type semiconductor layer 18, in which the patterned p-type semiconductor layer 18 preferably becomes a part of the gate structure of the HEMT in the later process.” However, Applicants did not originally disclose that “the hard mask comprises titanium nitride and an uniform width” as recited on line 6, because (a) it appears that the limitation cited above is based on the apparently straight vertical side lines on both sides of the hard mask 20 in Fig. 5 of current application, but Applicants did not originally disclose that all the drawings of current application are exactly to the scale, (b) Applicants did not originally disclose any width of the component layers of the claimed HEMT, not to mention the width of the hard mask, (c) if arguendo all the component layers are drawn to the scale in current application, then for example, the top surface of the hard mask 20 in Fig. 5 of current application should have a zero surface roughness since there is only one straight line for the top surface of the hard mask 20, but Applicants did not originally disclose how to achieve a zero surface roughness for the top surface of the hard mask 20, (d) this point is further substantiated by Torazawa et al. (” High-Performance Metal Hard Mask Process Using Fiber-Textured TiN Film for Cu Interconnects,” ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, 5 (2016) P489-P494) who show that, even though the schematic illustration shows a titanium nitride hard mask with a uniform width in Fig. 1 and thus the titanium nitride hard mask looks rectangular in the cross-sectional view of the schematic illustration, an actual shape of the titanium nitride hard mask does not include a uniform width as shown in Fig. 2, which can be understood by the fact that the top portion of the titanium nitride hard mask is exposed to an etching process longer than the bottom portion of the titanium nitride hard mask, resulting in a shape of the titanium nitride hard mask where the top portion is narrower than the bottom portion, and (e) therefore, the claimed uniform width of the titanium nitride hard mask 20 in Fig. 5 of current application merely based on a schematic illustration fails to comply with the written description requirement, especially when Applicants did not originally disclose any scales of the drawings of current application, and furthermore, the limitation cited above may also fail to comply with the enablement requirement. Claims 2-4, 6 and 7 depend on claim 1, and therefore, claims 2-4, 6 and 7 also fail to comply with the written description requirement.
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 1-4, 6 and 7 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Regarding claim 1, it is not clear what the limitation “the gate electrode comprises Schottky metal” recited on lines 7-8 suggests, because (a) a Schottky contact is formed at an interface between a semiconductor and a metal, (b) whether a metal is a Schottky metal or not is determined not only by the material composition of the metal, but also by the material composition of the semiconductor, (c) furthermore, even for the same pair of a metal and a semiconductor, a Schottky contact may be formed or an ohmic contact may be formed depending on the processing parameters such as a surface roughness of the metal and the semiconductor at the interface, whether an annealing or heat treatment is performed, what the temperature of the annealing or heat treatment is, how long the annealing or heat treatment is performed, what the ambient under which the annealing or heat treatment is performed, etc., (d) therefore, whether or not “the gate electrode comprises Schottky metal” cannot simply be determined by a material composition of the gate electrode only since it can also be determined by other process parameters, which Applicants do not claim, (e) however, Applicants briefly mentioned “a Schottky metal” in the following paragraphs: in paragraphs [0020] and [0034] of current application, Applicants simply stated that “the gate electrode 28, the source electrode 30, and the drain electrode 32 are preferably made of metal, in which the gate electrode 28 is preferably made of Schottky metal while the source electrode 30 and the drain electrode 32 are preferably made of ohmic contact metals” without any further explanation on what the “Schottky metal” refers to, and (f) finally, the claimed gate electrode 28 is in direct contact with the titanium nitride hard mask 20 as shown in Fig. 5 of current application, where the titanium nitride hard mask 20 is a metallic material, and therefore, the claimed gate electrode 28 is not even in contact with a semiconductor to even have a possibility of forming a Schottky contact. Claims 2-4, 6 and 7 depend on claim 1, and therefore, claims 2-4, 6 and 7 are also indefinite.
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments with respect to claim 1 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAY C KIM whose telephone number is (571) 270-1620. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joshua Benitez can be reached on (571) 270-1435. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JAY C KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2815
/J.K./Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2815 May 15, 2026
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