DETAILED ACTION
This office action addresses Applicant’s response filed on 25 June 2026. Claims 1-15 are pending.
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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to abstract mental processes without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) methods of modifying patterns, comprising a step of aligning jogs to eliminate an intervening pattern, which is basic shape editing that could be performed by a designer in the mind or with pen and paper. Claims 2-15 merely recite characteristics of the patterns being modified, and do not change the abstract nature of the claimed mental process.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the although the claim has been amended to recite that the method is for “reducing a shot count” and that the layout pattern is “obtained by performing OPC”, the former is merely a statement of intended use, and the latter is merely insignificant extra-solution activity for inputting the data that the invention operates on. Similarly, the claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because neither intended use nor insignificant extra-solution activity qualify as ‘significantly more’.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-6 and 9-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Elayat (“Assessment and comparison of different approaches for mask write time reduction”).
Regarding claim 1, Elayat discloses a design method of a photomask structure for reducing a shot count (p. 2, title), comprising: providing a layout pattern obtained by performing OPC (p. 1, §1, ¶¶1-2), wherein the layout pattern comprises a plurality of basic patterns, the plurality of basic patterns comprise a first basic pattern, a second basic pattern, and a third basic pattern, the second basic pattern is located between the first basic pattern and the third basic pattern, the second basic pattern is connected to the first basic pattern and the third basic pattern, there is a first jog portion between the first basic pattern and the second basic pattern, there is a second jog portion between the second basic pattern and the third basic pattern, and the first jog portion and the second jog portion are located at two opposite sides of the layout pattern; and moving the first jog portion and the second jog portion to align the first jog portion and the second jog portion with each other and to eliminate the second basic pattern, wherein a first area change amount produced by moving the first jog portion is equal to a second area change amount produced by moving the second jog portion (p. 2, Fig. 2; jog-aligned figure on the bottom enlarges each rectangle by the same area compared to unaligned upper fractured figure).
Regarding claim 2, Elayat discloses that a relationship between the first area change amount and the second area change amount is represented by the following formula 1: W1 x D = W2 x (L-D); a width of the first jog portion is W1, a width of the second jog portion is W2, before the first jog portion and the second jog portion are aligned with each other, a distance between the first basic pattern and the third basic pattern is L, and after the first jog portion and the second jog portion are aligned with each other, a moving distance of the first jog portion is D, and a moving distance of the second jog portion is a value obtained by subtracting the moving distance D from the distance L (Fig. 2; the formula is simply a formal expression of the first and second area changes being equal, and is necessarily satisfied by the jog-aligned figure in which the upper and lower rectangles are enlarged by the same area).
Regarding claim 3, Elayat discloses that the moving distance D is represented by the following formula 2: D = (W2 x L) / (W1 + W2) (Fig. 2; formula 2 is equivalent to formula 1, and is necessarily satisfied for the same reasons).
Regarding claim 4, Elayat discloses that after the first jog portion and the second jog portion are aligned with each other, an area of the first basic pattern and an area of the third basic pattern are increased, and the first basic pattern and the third basic pattern are connected to each other (Fig. 2, jog-aligned fractured pattern).
Regarding claim 5, Elayat discloses that the first basic pattern comprises a first side and a second side, the second basic pattern comprises a third side and a fourth side, the third basic pattern comprises a fifth side and a sixth side, the second side is overlapped with the third side, a length of the second side is different from a length of the third side, the fourth side is overlapped with the fifth side, and a length of the fourth side is different from a length of the fifth side (Fig. 2, upper fractured pattern).
Regarding claim 6, Elayat discloses that after the first jog portion and the second jog portion are aligned with each other, the second side is overlapped with the fifth side (Fig. 2, jog-aligned fractured pattern).
Regarding claims 9, Elayat discloses that a width of the first jog portion is equal to a width of the second jog portion (Fig. 2, upper fractured pattern).
Regarding claims 10, 12, and 14, Elayat discloses that a shape of the first, second, third basic pattern each comprise a polygon (Fig. 2, upper fractured pattern).
Regarding claims 11, 13, and 15, Elayat discloses that a shape of the first, second, third basic pattern each comprise a rectangle (Fig. 2, upper fractured pattern).
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) 7 and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Elayat in view of Zhang (US 2006/0085773).
Regarding claim 7, Elayat does not appear to explicitly disclose that a width of the first jog portion is greater than a width of the second jog portion; Zhang discloses these limitations (Fig. 2, jogs between any of 1201-1206). It would have been obvious to persons having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Elayat in view of Zhang, because doing so would have involved merely the routine combination of known elements according to known techniques, or the routine application of a known technique to improve similar methods in the same way, to produce merely the predictable results of aligning jogs for different patterns. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385, 1395. Elayat discloses aligning jogs of patterns. Zhang teaches different arrangements of patterns. The teachings of Zhang are directly applicable to Elayat, or vice versa, so that Elayat would align jogs of different patterns, such as those taught by Zhang.
Regarding claim 8, Elayat does not appear to explicitly disclose that a width of the first jog portion is less than a width of the second jog portion Zhang discloses these limitations (Fig. 2, jogs between any of 1201-1206). Motivation to combine remains consistent with claim 7.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 25 June 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant asserts that the claims have been amended to overcome the § 101 rejections. Remarks 5. The examiner disagrees. As discussed above in the rejection, the amendments include merely a statement of intended use (shot count reduction) and insignificant extra-solution activity for obtaining the data that the invention operates on (obtained by OPC), neither of which qualifies as either integration into a practical application nor ‘significantly more’ than the abstract idea itself.
Applicant asserts that Elayat fails to disclose that the first area change is equal to the second area change, because persons having ordinary skill in the art could not infer from Elayat’s Fig. 2 that the first area change amount must be equal to the second area change amount, and Elayat does not state that the first area change amount must be equal to the second area change amount, and does not teach the movement rules for the first and second jog portions. Remarks 6. The examiner disagrees. The claim language is simply not as narrow as Applicant envisions. The claim merely recites, “moving the first jog portion and the second jog portion to align the first jog portion and the second jog portion with each other and to eliminate the second basic pattern, wherein a first area change amount produced by moving the first jog portion is equal to a second area change amount produced by moving the second jog portion.” Contrary to Applicant’s assertions, the claims do not recite “movement rules” or otherwise require the movement to intentionally target equal-area movement. As written, the claim encompasses any instance of a process moving the jogs in any way that results in the first area change and the second area change being equal, even if the process was not intentionally targeting that equality. In other words, if a process of moving jogs produces an example where the first and second area changes happen to be equal, that example would anticipate the claims.
It is also not the case that the examiner “relies entirely on a visual inference from Elayat’s Figure 2”, or “improper inherency reasoning”, as asserted by Applicant. Remarks 6. Elayat’s Fig. 2 specifically illustrates a situation where two aligned jogs become misaligned due to bias, and the jogs are realigned by moving them back to their pre-bias positions. In an example case of contiguous equal rectangles, as illustrated in Fig. 2, the bias would produce the same perturbation to both rectangles, so moving the jogs back to the pre-bias position would result in equal area change. The rejection also does not rely on inherency; the examiner is not arguing that Elayat’s process necessarily or inherently results in equal area change, merely that the given example in Fig. 2 teaches one way to get equal area changes (even if unintentionally). As discussed above, the existing claim language does not require a process that intentionally produces equal area changes in every case; a process that happens to produce such an equal-area outcome, even unintentionally, satisfies the claims as written.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ARIC LIN whose telephone number is (571)270-3090. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 07:30-17:00 ET.
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19 September 2026
/ARIC LIN/ Examiner, Art Unit 2851
/JACK CHIANG/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2851
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