DETAILED ACTION
Applicant’s Response
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant’s submission filed on April 29, 2026, has been entered.
Claims 19, 25, and 28 are amended.
The applicant contends:
(1) The cited prior art does not teach the new material presently recited by independent claims 19 and 25 – namely, a “controller configured to control” the precursor, reactant, and plasma boxes. In view of this language, the doctrine of intended use no longer applies to those limitations directed to the formation of an “interface pattern on the layer” (pp. 6-7).
(2) Abel nominates silicon dioxide as a precursor material, but claims 19 and 25 require the precursor to include “metallic materials” (p. 8).
In response,
(1) After reviewing Applicant’s specification, it appears that the claimed “controller” is not a programmable device, such as software being run by a CPU, but, instead, is merely something like a mass flow controller that narrowly regulates an operation like flow rate [0054]. In this instance, the prior art must merely disclose a mechanical means capable of regulating the velocity of a gas stream, such as a valve. Intended use doctrine continues to apply, because control of the various mechanical instruments of an apparatus is necessarily within an operator’s scope of supervision.
Turning to the prior art, Abel discloses an indefinite number of gas boxes (452-N) whose respective source gases can be selected by the operator. Critically, each gas box comprises a dedicated valve (454) and mass flow controller (456) [0047]. Either or both of the valve and mass flow controller can be taken to constitute the claimed “controller configured to control” a given box “to supply” the corresponding source gas. In this way, the examiner understands the prior art to satisfy the new material.
(2) In view of the preceding analysis, the Office’s judgement that the operator can simply select a precursor containing a metal continues to obtain, as Applicant’s “controller” is simply a flow controller. A flow controller, of course, narrowly regulates the flow rate of a gas that has already been selected by the operator. For this reason, the present recitation of a “controller” does not bear upon the operator’s prior capacity to select a metallic precursor for use as a source gas.
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 19-25 and 27-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abel et al., US 2020/0017967, in view of Hill et al., US 2015/0267301.
Claims 19, 28: Abel discloses an apparatus for fabricating a structure comprising a plate (426), a showerhead (424), and a gas delivery system (450) ([0043-44]; Fig. 8). The gas delivery system (450) comprises a series of gas source boxes (452) which are capable of accommodating and delivering any type of gas [0047]. That is, the operator can charge one box with a precursor to generate the claimed “precursor box,” one box with a purge gas to generate a “purge box,” and one box with a reactant to generate a “reactant box.” This demonstration of the prior art’s structural capacity to reproduce the claimed fluid delivery function is sufficient to satisfy the threshold for rejection in an apparatus claim, as it has been held that a recitation drawn to the intended manner of employing a claimed apparatus does not differentiate said apparatus from a prior art apparatus satisfying the claimed structural limitations (Ex parte Masham, 2 USPQ2d 1647 (1987)).
It should be noted that Abel discloses an indefinite number of gas sources: 452-N, where “N is an integer greater than zero” [0047]. The reference, then, does not formally anticipate the three gas boxes enumerated above. Nevertheless, one of ordinary skill would understand the notation of “N” to plausibly encompass a quantity of gas sources exceeding the number depicted by Figure 8, as it has been held that mere duplication of the essential working parts of a device involves only routine skill in the art (St. Regis Paper Co. v. Bemis Co., 193 USPQ 8).
Further, regarding the new material, each gas box comprises a dedicated valve (454) and mass flow controller (456), where either or both of these instruments may be taken to constitute the claimed “controller configured to control” a given box “to supply” the corresponding source gas.
The depicted embodiment of Figure 8 avails an RF source (440) to ionize selected gases upon their entrance to the reaction chamber, but this technique does not formally “provide the plasma to the shower head,” as claim 19 requires. Yet Abel contemplates an alternative embodiment in which the plasma is first generated remotely and then supplied to the reaction chamber [0046]. The Office is relying upon this embodiment for the purposes of rejection, whereby the remote plasma source may be taken as the claimed “plasma box.”
Lastly, Abel couples each dedicated conduit to a mixing manifold (460) situated upstream of the shower head (424), whereas claim 19 requires the direct provision of gas to the shower head from the gas source. In supplementation, Hill discloses an analogous plasma processing system comprising a series of precursor, purge, and reactant boxes (110, 112, 114) that supply fluid to a shower head (108) ([0002]; Fig. 1). And yet, rather than inserting a mixing manifold into the flow path, Hill directly couples each dedicated conduit line (116, 118, 120) to the shower head, thereby demonstrating the viability of this paradigm for purposes of gas provision. The examiner understands these competing designs, one with a mixing manifold and one without, as constituting art-recognized equivalents, whereby the selection of either design would have been obvious over the other. In other words, choosing from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions to the matter of gas distribution, each with a reasonable expectation of success, is within the scope of ordinary skill.
Claim 20: By definition, a remote plasma source generates plasma within its confines.
Claims 21, 23-24, 29-30: The type of gas provided is a matter of intended use, whereby the operator can simply provide the appropriate fluid to the apparatus.
Claim 22: One of Abel’s 452-N gas sources can be charged with an etchant fluid by the operator, whereby the gas delivery system will supply the etchant to the shower head. In turn, the shower head will provide the etchant to the plate.
Claim 25: The rejection of claim 19, above, substantially addresses these limitations. In addition, it would have been obvious to allocate a sufficient number of Abel’s 452-N gas sources to constitute each of the five claimed gas boxes. Any one of the gas sources can be used to accommodate and deliver the nitrogen interface forming gas. Separately, Abel’s plate (426) comprises a heater (432) [0045].
Claim 27: As shown by Figure 8 of Abel, one may delimit an abstract boundary (450) about each of the gas sources and name this the “gas box.”
Claim 26 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abel in view of Hill, and in further view of Forderhase, US 2019/0326139.
Abel is silent regarding the temperatures attained within the processing chamber. In supplementation, Forderhase, like Abel, discloses an etching apparatus comprising an electrostatic chuck (188) having a heater (186) embedded therein [0021]. During processing, the heater can elevate the reaction chamber temperature to 700 degrees Celsius [0031]. In view of this demonstration as to the suitability of the aforesaid temperature setting for purposes of etching, it would have been obvious to heat Abel’s apparatus to this threshold since applying a known technique to a known device to yield predictable results is within the scope of ordinary skill.
Conclusion
The following prior art is made of record as being pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure, yet is not formally relied upon: Albarede et al., US 2016/0314943. Albarede discloses an apparatus comprising a plate (106), a shower head (109), a plasma box (120), and a gas box (130) comprising plural gas sources ([0045]; Fig. 1).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NATHAN K FORD whose telephone number is (571)270-1880. The examiner can normally be reached on 11-7:30 PM. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Parviz Hassanzadeh, can be reached at 571 272 1435. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571 273 8300.
/N. K. F./
Examiner, Art Unit 1716
/KARLA A MOORE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1716
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