DETAILED ACTION
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 .
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 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.
Response to Amendments/Arguments
Amendments made to claims 1, 12 and 18-20, filed on February 4, 2026, are acknowledged.
The amendments made to claims 1, 12 and 18 have overcome the previous rejections to the claims and their dependent claims under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as set forth in the Office Action mailed on September 15, 2025
Amendments made to claims 19-20 are responsive. The previous objection to the claims, as set forth in the Office Action mailed on September 15, 2025, has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to amended claims have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to new ground(s) of rejection in this Office Action necessitated by the amendments made to the claims.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 -10 and 12-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Venkatasubramanian et al. (US20210407801).
Regarding claim 1, Venkatasubramanian discloses a method of processing a substrate (abstract), comprising: flowing a deposition gas comprising a hydrocarbon compound and an etchant species into a processing volume of a process chamber having the substrate positioned on an electrostatic chuck (hydrogen radical reads on an etchant species, paragraphs 0023 and 0028-0029 and abstract); generating a plasma at the substrate by applying a first RF bias to the electrostatic chuck to deposit a diamond-like carbon film on the substrate (paragraph 0028), wherein the diamond-like carbon film comprises a sp2 carbon content and a sp3 carbon content (paragraph 0029); etching a portion of the diamond-like carbon film, wherein the etching is selective to the sp2 carbon content such that the diamond-like carbon film comprises more of the sp3 carbon content than the sp2 carbon content (paragraph 0029); doping the diamond-like carbon film with a metal dopant to form a doped diamond-like carbon film (paragraph 0024 and claim 3); and thermally annealing the metal dopant to the doped diamond-like carbon film (heating and maintaining substrate temperature at about 400oC reads on annealing, paragraph 0025).
Regarding claim 2, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the doped diamond-like carbon film has a density of greater than or equal to about 2.5 g/cc (claim 2).
Regarding claim 3, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the doped diamond-like carbon film has an atomic percent of metal from about 0.1 atomic percent to about 20 atomic percent (claims 3 and 7).
Regarding claims 5-6, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the metal dopant comprises tungsten (claim 3).
Regarding claim 7, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the deposition gas further comprises helium, argon, neon, nitrogen (N2), hydrogen (H2), or any combination thereof (claim 10).
Regarding claim 8, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the processing volume is maintained at a pressure of about 50mTorr (paragraph 0026).
Regarding claim 9, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the doped diamond-like carbon film has an elastic modulus of greater than 150 GPa (claim 12).
Regarding claim 10, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein thermally annealing the doped diamond-like carbon film includes heating the processing chamber to a temperature of about 400 degrees Celsius (paragraph 0025).
Regarding claim 12, Venkatasubramanian discloses a method of processing a substrate (abstract) , comprising: flowing a deposition gas comprising a hydrocarbon compound (paragraph 0023), an etchant species (hydrogen radical reads on an etchant species, paragraph 0029), and a metal dopant into a processing volume of a process chamber having the substrate positioned on an electrostatic chuck (paragraphs 0024 and 0028 and claim 3), wherein the processing volume is maintained at a pressure of about 1 mTorr to about 10 Torr (paragraph 0026), generating a plasma at the substrate by applying a first RF bias to the electrostatic chuck to deposit a doped diamond-like carbon film on the substrate formed by the hydrocarbon compound and the metal dopant (abstract and paragraph 0028), wherein the doped diamond-like carbon film comprises a sp2 carbon content and a sp2 carbon content (paragraph 0029); etching a portion of the doped diamond-like carbon film, wherein the etching is selective to the sp2 carbon content such that the doped diamond-like carbon film comprises more of the sp3 carbon content than the sp2 carbon content (paragraph 0029); and thermally annealing the doped diamond-like carbon film (heating and maintaining substrate temperature at about 400oC reads on annealing, paragraph 0025), wherein the doped diamond-like carbon film comprises about 0.1 atomic percent to about 20 atomic percent of metal (claims 3 and 7).
Regarding claim 13, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the metal dopant comprises tungsten (claim 3).
Regarding claim 14, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the hydrocarbon compound comprises ethyne (paragraph 0023).
Regarding claim 15, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the deposition gas further comprises at least one of helium, argon, neon, nitrogen (N2), or hydrogen (H2) (claim 10).
Regarding claim 16, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the doped diamond-like carbon film has an elastic modulus of greater than 150 GPa (claim 12).
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.
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.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Venkatasubramanian et al. (US20210407801) as applied to claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 11, Venkatasubramanian is silent about wherein thermally annealing the doped diamond- like carbon film is performed for about 2 minutes to about 10 minutes. However, optimizing a process step time is a routine task performed by one of ordinary skill in the art. Additionally, where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable range by routine experimentation and there is no evidence of the criticality of the claimed range. See MPEP 2144.05 II.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Venkatasubramanian et al. (US20210407801) as applied to claim 12 above.
Regarding claim 17, Venkatasubramanian is silent about wherein thermally annealing the doped diamond-like carbon film is performed for about 2 minutes to about 10 minutes. However, optimizing a process step time is a routine task performed by one of ordinary skill in the art. Additionally, where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable range by routine experimentation and there is no evidence of the criticality of the claimed range. See MPEP 2144.05 II.
Claims 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Venkatasubramanian et al. (US20210407801).
Regarding claim 18, Venkatasubramanian discloses a method of processing a substrate (abstract), comprising: flowing a deposition gas comprising a hydrocarbon compound (paragraph 0023), an etchant species (hydrogen radical reads on an etchant species, paragraph 0029), and a metal dopant into a processing volume of a process chamber having the substrate positioned on an electrostatic chuck (paragraphs 0024 and 0028 and abstract), wherein the electrostatic chuck comprises a chucking electrode and an RF electrode separate from the chucking electrode (paragraph 0050), wherein the processing volume is maintained at a pressure of about 1 mTorr to about 10 Torr (paragraph 0026), generating a plasma at the substrate by applying a first RF bias to the RF electrode to deposit a doped diamond-like carbon film on the substrate formed by the hydrocarbon compound and the metal dopant (paragraph 0028 and abstract), wherein the doped diamond-like carbon film has a density of greater than 2.5 g/cc (claim 2) and the doped diamond-like carbon film comprises a sp2 carbon content and a sp3 carbon content (paragraph 0029); etching a portion of the doped diamond-like carbon film, wherein the etching is selective to the sp2 carbon content such that the diamond-like carbon film comprises more of the sp3 carbon content than the sp2 carbon content (paragraph 0029); thermally annealing the doped diamond-like carbon film at a temperature of about 400 degrees Celsius (paragraph 0025); forming a patterned photoresist layer over the doped diamond-like carbon film (paragraph 0053); etching the doped diamond-like carbon film in a pattern corresponding with the patterned photoresist layer (paragraph 0053); and etching the pattern into the substrate (paragraph 0053). Venkatasubramanian is silent about wherein thermally annealing the doped diamond-like carbon film is performed for about 2 minutes to about 10 minutes. However, optimizing a process step time is a routine task performed by one of ordinary skill in the art. Additionally, where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable range by routine experimentation and there is no evidence of the criticality of the claimed range. See MPEP 2144.05 II.
Regarding claim 19, Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the doped diamond-like carbon film has an elastic modulus of greater than 150 GPa (claim 12).
Regarding claim 20, Venkatasubramanian discloses Venkatasubramanian discloses wherein the doped diamond-like carbon film has an atomic percent of metal from about 0.1 atomic percent to about 20 atomic percent (claims 3 and 7).
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JIONG-PING LU whose telephone number is (571) 270-1135. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F: 9:00am – 5:00pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joshua L Allen, can be reached at telephone number (571)270-3176. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JIONG-PING LU/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1713