DETAILED CORRESPONDENCE
Acknowledgements
This office action is in response to the communication filed 11/19/2025.
Claims 1-3 and 5-17 are pending, Claims 2-3, 5-6 and 8-15 are withdrawn, and Claims 1-3, 5-7 and 16-17 have been examined.
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 7 and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Kitano et al. (US 5,944,894 A) in view KR20110078255A (previously cited) (machine translation attached), Ogata et al. (US 2014/0360540 A1) and KR20100060094A.
Re claim 1, Kitano discloses a substrate processing apparatus (title, abstract) comprising:
a holder (col. 4 line 43 spin chuck) configured to hold a substrate;
a second processing cup (col. 4 line 43 cup CP) provided around the holder;
a first supply (col. 1 line 50 treatment solution, inherently must have a supply) configured to supply a chemical liquid to the substrate held by the holder;
a second supply (refs. 160, 162, 164, 166, 168) configured to supply a rinse liquid (water) or a drying liquid to the substrate held by the holder;
a drain block (ref. 83) provided at a bottom of the second processing cup, and selectively connected to a drain line (ref. 195 beyond valve 196) or a recovery line (ref. 110) via a line switch (refs. 194, 196; here, the control of refs. 194, 196 satisfies a line switch depending on the concentration of ammonia to drain or circulate after ammonia removal, see col. 2 lines 50-58, col. 9 lines 1-9) (To any extent “a line switch” implies a singular switch, the replacement of multiple valves with a multi-way/three-way valve is prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in art, for the same purpose of controlling fluid flow and reasonable expectations of success.); and
a first gauge (ref. 189) provided in the drain block, and configured to measure a purity of the rinse liquid or the drying liquid (col. 2 lines 50-58, col. 9 lines 1-9); and
a controller (ref. 170) configured to: (ii) control the line switch based on the purity measured by the first gauge (col. 9 lines 1-9 describing the reverse drain when it is not recoverable; col. 7 lines 49-56, col. 8 lines 60-67 describing the circulation circuit for recoverable/low concentration).
Kitano does not explicitly disclose a singular line switch, wherein the drain line and the recovery line are configured to branch from the line switch without overlapping and a first processing cup and a second processing cup disposed inside or outside the first processing cup, and a cup switch configured to switch between a first state where the first processing cup receives a liquid and a second state where the second processing cup receives a liquid (Kitano teaches one [second] processing cup connected to the corresponding drain block) and (i) control the cup switch to switch from the first state to the second state while the rinse liquid or the drying liquid is being supplied to the substrate, (ii) control the line switch based on the purity measured by the first gauge in the second state.
Regarding the singular drain line switch, KR20110078255A teaches it is well-known in the substrate processing art to provide a singular drain line switch (ref. 300, see fig. 2A) wherein the drain line (ref. 200, 160, 170) and the recovery line (ref. 140, 180, 190) are configured to branch without overlapping.
Regarding the first and second processing cups, Ogata discloses it is well-known in the substrate processing apparatus art (abstract) to provide a first processing cup and a second processing cup disposed inside or outside the first processing cup (see figs. 1 and 3-7 refs. 51, 52, 53 first, second and third cups), and a cup switch (refs. 7, 610, 620) configured to switch between a first state where the first processing cup receives a liquid and a second state where the second processing cup receives a liquid (see figs. 1 and 3-7), each of the cups connected to a corresponding discharge line (refs. 111, 121, 131), and (i) control the cup switch to switch from the first state to the second state while the rinse liquid or the drying liquid is being supplied to the substrate (see figs. 1 and 3-7).
Regarding “(ii) control the line switch based on the purity measured by the first gauge in the second state”, KR20100060094A teaches each cup with separate liquids (refs. 130, see fig. 1) may feed separation discharge lines (refs. 138, 139), and each discharge line may recover or drain the cleaning or chemical liquid to independent cleaning or chemical regeneration unit (“ The first recovery line 138 recovers or drains the cleaning liquid introduced into the first recovery container 132 to the cleaning solution regeneration unit (not shown) during the cleaning process of the substrate W or the cleaning process of the substrate support member 110. The second recovery line 139 recovers the chemical liquid introduced into the second and third recovery containers 134 and 136 to the chemical liquid regeneration unit (not shown) during the chemical liquid treatment process of the substrate W”). It therefore being prima facie obvious that each discharge line whether the rinse liquid in the first state or the drying liquid in the second state have independent regeneration units, such as that in Kitano, with respective gauges.
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the lien switch of Kitano to further include a line switch wherein the drain line and the recovery line do not overlap, as suggested by KR20110078255A, in order to independently or sequentially control whether to drain, recover or recycle; and to further include a first processing cup and a second processing cup and a switch, as suggested by Ogata, in order to separately capture and discharge different processing chemicals; and to further have each processing cup feed to a regeneration unit, as suggested by KR20100060094A, in order to enable each processing fluid to be recovered or drained.
Re claim 7, Independent claim 7 is drawn to a supply system wholly incorporating claim 1. Kitano discloses as shown above and Kitano further discloses a supply system (see fig. 7), a regeneration system (ref. 190 ammonia eliminator) connected to the recovery line of the substrate processing apparatus configured to perform a regeneration process on the rinse liquid recovered from the recovery line; a generation system (refs. 111, 112, 113, 110, 114, 115) connected to the regeneration system, and configured to generate a new rinse liquid from a regenerated rinse liquid obtained by the regeneration process and processed raw water (via ref. 165), and supply the new rinse liquid generated by the generation system to the second supply of the substrate processing apparatus (via ref. 92); and a raw water processing system (ref. 164, 165, 106) connected to the generation system, and configured to supply the processed raw water to the generation system.
Re claim 16, Kitano and/or KR20110078255A further discloses wherein the controller is further configured to control the line switch such that the rinse liquid or the drying liquid flows into the drain line when determined that a purity of the rinse liquid or the drying liquid is less than a threshold value (Kitano “the controller 170 opens a valve 196 to discharge the water with a high ammonia concentration to the outside in accordance with concentration detection signal from sensor 189” (col. 9 lines 1-9); KR20110078255A “when the measured concentration of the first densitometer exceeds the reference value (S20), the first three-way valve is opened (S30) so that the solution flows into the wastewater line (S30), or when the solution does not exceed the reference value, the recovery / reuse line Open the first three-way valve (S70) to flow to.”).
Re claim 17, KR20110078255A wherein no regeneration process is performed upstream of the line switch (see fig. 2a no regeneration process upstream of the line switch 300).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11/19/2025 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore the previous rejection is withdrawn. A new ground of rejection has been made above in view of KR20100060094A. Examiner highlights KR20100060094A teaches separate processing cups may each be fed to a separate regeneration unit to determine whether to recover or drain the cleaning liquid or chemical liquid, respectively. It being prima facie obvious that each regeneration unit have respective gauges to measure purity.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KEVIN LEE whose telephone number is (571)270-7299. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30am to 6:30pm.
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KEVIN G. LEE
Examiner
Art Unit 1711
/KEVIN G LEE/Examiner, Art Unit 1711