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 .
Status of Claims
This action is in reply to the Amendments/Response filed on January 5, 2026. Claim(s) 1-2 have been amended. No additional claims have been added. No claims have been cancelled. Claims 1-2 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Amendments
The examiner fully acknowledges the amendments to claims 1-2 filed on January 5, 2026.
The applicant’s amendments to claims 1 and 2 are sufficient to overcome the rejection of claims, as presented in the 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 rejections, which respectively indicated the claims as being anticipated by anticipated by Ganapathiappan (US PG Pub No. 20210205951) and Kojima (US PG Pub No. 20160133466) in view of Ganapathiappan.
Please see the new rejections set forth within the action.
Response to Arguments
The applicant’s arguments, see pages 2-6, filed January 5, 2026 have been fully considered.
102 and 103 Rejections: The applicants remarks are found persuasive. The reference of Ganapathiappan fails to disclose or make obvious a loss tangent ranging from 0.1 to 0.25 at 30 °C. As such, the amended claims overcome the rejections presented in the previous action, and Ganapathiappan. However, upon further search and consideration, a new reference, Tsai (US PG Pub No. 20220119586) has been found to disclose polishing pad properties that fall within the claimed range. Please see the new rejections set forth within the present action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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 –
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Tsai (US PG Pub No. 20220119586).
In regards to claim 1, Tsai discloses
A polishing pad ([0033]: CMP polishing pad) for polishing a silicon carbide substrate, wherein the polishing pad ([0033]: CMP polishing pad)
contains polyurethane ([0025]: blocked polyurethane (ABPU) and abrasive grains ([0021]: fixed abrasive pad has abrasive particles held in a containment media) fixed by the polyurethane ([0003] These conventional polishing pads are typically prepared by molding, casting or sintering polyurethane materials) and
has a loss tangent of 0.1 to 0.25 at 30°C and a glass transition temperature of 40°C to 65°C (see annotated fig. 3B and table 1; resins with different ratios of certain components were tested, four of which having glass transition temperatures above 40°C to 65°C. Of the four resins, two of them had loss tangents between 0.1 and 0.25 at 30°C).
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Examiner’s Note:
Pursuant of MPEP 2115, claim analysis is understood as highly fact-dependent, thus is only limited by positively recited elements. Therefore, the inclusion of the material or article worked upon by a structure being claimed does not impart patentability to the claims. In re Otto, 312 F.2d 937, 136 USPQ 458, 459; see also In re Young, 75 F.2d 996, 25 USPQ 69. As such, Tsai does not need to explicitly disclose “a silicon carbide” substrate, as its disclosure does present the structure and configuration capable of polishing a substrate.
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 text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kojima et al. (US PG Pub No. 20160133466) in view of Tsai (US PG Pub No. 20220119586).
In regards to claim 2, Kojima discloses
a polishing method for polishing a silicon carbide substrate (Abstract), comprising:
Abstract: A method of polishing a SiC substrate by supplying a polishing liquid and bringing a polishing pad into contact with the SiC substrate is provided
a holding step ([0015]) of holding a workpiece having the silicon carbide substrate by
a chuck table (chuck table 4, fig. 1) of a polishing apparatus (polishing apparatus 2, fig. 1); and
[0015] First, the first polishing step is conducted in which the SiC substrate is polished by using the first polishing pad. FIG. 1 illustrates schematically the first polishing step. As shown in FIG. 1, a polishing apparatus 2 used in the present embodiment includes a chuck table 4 for holding a SiC substrate 11 by suction.
a polishing step of polishing the silicon carbide substrate by a disk-shaped polishing pad (polishing pad 18, fig. 1) while supplying polishing liquid (polishing liquid 15, fig. 1) from a through-hole (longitudinal hole 10a, fig. 1) of a polishing tool (first polishing unit 8, fig. 1) that has a disk-shaped base substrate (wheel base 16, fig. 1) and the polishing pad (polishing pad 18, fig. 1) and that is formed at a radially central part thereof with the through-hole penetrating the base substrate and the polishing pad,
[0017] … An upper end of the longitudinal hole 10a is connected with a supply source 20 for supplying a polishing liquid 15 through a piping or the like. In the supply source 20 is stored the polishing liquid 15 which contains a permanganate, inorganic salts having an oxidizing ability, and water. Here, the permanganate is an oxoacid salt of manganese, represented by potassium permanganate and sodium permanganate. The inorganic salts having an oxidizing ability are oxidizing solids (corresponding to category I of hazardous materials under Japanese Fire Service Law), such as chlorinates, sulfates, nitrates, and chromates. The polishing liquid 15 fed from the supply source 20 into the longitudinal hole 10a is supplied via an opening of the longitudinal hole 18a formed in the center of the lower surface of the first polishing pad 18 to an area of contact between the SiC substrate 11 and the first polishing pad 18.
[0018] While the chuck table 4 and the first spindle 10 kept rotated, the first polishing wheel 14 is lowered to bring the lower surface of the first polishing pad 18 into contact with the upper side of the SiC substrate 11 while supplying the polishing liquid 15, whereby the upper side of the SiC substrate 11 can be polished. The first polishing step is finished when the SiC substrate 11 has been polished to reach a preset arbitrary polishing amount.
the polishing pad containing polyurethane and abrasive grains fixed by the polyurethane,
[0016]:… The first polishing pad 18 is formed from a material obtained by mixing abrasive grains with a rigid polyurethane having a hardness of 40 to 80 as measured by a durometer type D (Shore D) as specified in ISO 7619. It is to be noted, however, that the first polishing pad 18 is not limited to this.
However, Kojima fails to explicitly disclose that the polishing pad has a loss tangent of 0.1 to 0.25 at 30°C and a glass transition temperature of 40°C to 65°C.
Tsai teaches several polishing pad resin compositions that meet the claimed requirements for loss tangent and glass transition temperature.
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Kojima and Tsai are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of polyurethan polishing pads used for polishing substrates.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kojima to incorporate the chemical compounds recited in Tsai necessary to yield a loss tangent between 0.1 and 0.25, and glass transition temperature between 40° C and 65° C, as Tsai discloses polishing pads of such chemical composition “[0051]: using a 50:50 ratio of the TBEMA capped prepolymer to the HEA capped prepolymer, showed a comparable removal rate(s).”
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 JASON KHALIL HAWKINS whose telephone number is (571)272-5446. The examiner can normally be reached M-F; 8-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian Keller can be reached at (571) 272-8548. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JASON KHALIL HAWKINS/Examiner, Art Unit 3723
/BRIAN D KELLER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3723