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 .
This Office Action is in response to the application filed September 13, 2023.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 9 recites the limitation "the second gate structure electrode" (interpreted as the second gate structure) in lines 1-4. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 10 is rejected as being dependent upon rejected claim 9.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-8 and 11-20 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
In regard to claim 1, The prior art of record (Tseng et al. (US 11,475,953 B1)) does not disclose, make obvious, or otherwise suggest the structure of the applicant's claimed invention together with the other limitations of the dependent claims 2-8 and 11-20, such as the configuration of substrate, diffusion regions, gate structures, pull-up transistors, pull-down transistors and access transistors.
As best understood, claims 9-10 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The following patents are cited to further show the state of the art with respect to layout patterns of memory structures:
Hsieh et al. (US 10,411,022 B1) Lee et al. (US 2015/0348850 A1)
Liaw (US 10,460,794 B1) Liaw (US 10,535,667 B1)
Tseng et al. (US 11,475,953 B1) Yin et al. (US 2017/0018302 A1).
As best understood, claims 9-10 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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IMS
February 10, 2026
/IDA M SOWARD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2898