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 is the initial Office action based on application number 18/423969 filed January 26, 2024. Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been considered below.
Election/Restrictions
Claims 17-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on November 12, 2025.
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.
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.
Claims 1-7 and 10-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Verghese et al. (US 2018/0094350) in view of Lee et al. (KR 101313877, attached translation used for citation purposes).
Regarding claim 1: Verghese et al. discloses a reactor system including a reaction chamber assembly (1300) having a solid source assembly (1350) which is a source enclosure, the source enclosure (1350) holding a solid source chemical vaporizer (SSCV) vessel (104) which is a source vessel having one or more interior trays (108, 112) having top surfaces with recesses that receive a source chemical in fluid communication with the assembly (1300), bottom surfaces opposite the top surfaces and a housing base (480) that includes exterior walls meant to accommodate the interior trays (108, 112) (pars. 48-49, 99-102, figures 1, 4-8, 11 and 13-14). Verghese et al. fails to explicitly disclose a precursor monitoring system comprising a sensor assembly positioned between the bottom surface of the trays (108, 112) and the base (480).
However, Lee et al. discloses a similar reactor system having a vessel member (20) containing a solid precursor material (SM), including a source amount detecting unit (50) which is a monitoring system that includes a number of load cells (51) which are force sensors located between the vessel member (20) bottom surface and a support plate (52) which is an exterior wall, the detecting unit (50) communicating with a control unit (60) to determine the remaining weight of the solid precursor material (SM) and the vessel holding it (20) by using an arithmetic conversion or from a pre-stored data table (pages 6-7, figure 2). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use a source amount detecting unit (50) and control unit (60) like that of Lee et al. for the apparatus of Verghese et al. to measure the weight of the interior trays (108, 112) which hold the source material because Lee et al. teaches that using this setup to monitor the reaction process helps prevent denaturing of the material and/or thermal waste, while improving the supply of precursor gas and process productivity (pages 2, 7).
Regarding claim 2: Verghese et al. and Lee et al. disclose that the load cells (51) generate a signal to measure the force of the portion of the vessel (20) above it (Lee et al. page 6, figure 2), which in the instant combination would be the interior trays (108, 112).
Regarding claim 3: Verghese et al. discloses that the heater of the system operates to heat the vessel housing to a temperature in range of about 50 to 250 degrees Celsius (par. 16, 100), which in the combination, would be the temperature at which the load cells (51) operate.
Regarding claim 4: Verghese et al. discloses that the source vessel (104) includes a lid (113) and lid attachment hardware, in addition to valves (420, 424, 428, 432, 436) attached to the lid (113), all of which can be considered lid attachment devices (pars. 48, 81 figures 1 and 4).
Regarding claims 5-7: Verghese et al. and Lee et al. disclose that the load cells (51) send a signal to a control unit (60) which receives the signal and calculates the weight of the remaining source material according to either arithmetic conversion (requiring a conversion factor) or a pre-stored data table which requires a comparison to a threshold (Lee et al. page 7).
Regarding claim 10: Verghese et al. discloses that the heater of the system operates to heat the vessel housing to a temperature in range of about 50 to 250 degrees Celsius (par. 16, 100), which exceeds 150 degrees Celsius.
Regarding claim 11: Verghese et al. discloses a reactor system including a solid source assembly (1350) which is a source enclosure, the source enclosure (1350) holding a solid source chemical vaporizer (SSCV) vessel (104) which is a source vessel having one or more interior trays (108, 112) which receive a source chemical and a housing base (480) that includes exterior walls meant to accommodate the interior trays (108, 112) (pars. 48-49, 99-102, figures 1, 4-8, 11 and 13-14). Verghese et al. fails to explicitly disclose a precursor monitoring system comprising a sensor assembly positioned between the bottom surface of the trays (108, 112) and the base (480) or controller which processes the sensor signal.
However, Lee et al. discloses a similar reactor system having a vessel member (20) containing a solid precursor material (SM), including a source amount detecting unit (50) which is a monitoring system that includes a number of load cells (51) which are force sensors located between the vessel member (20) bottom surface and a support plate (52) which is an exterior wall, the detecting unit (50) communicating with a control unit (60) to determine the remaining weight of the solid precursor material (SM) and the vessel holding it (20) by using an arithmetic conversion or from a pre-stored data table (pages 6-7, figure 2). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use a source amount detecting unit (50) and control unit (60) like that of Lee et al. for the apparatus of Verghese et al. to measure the weight of the interior trays (108, 112) which hold the source material because Lee et al. teaches that using this setup to monitor the reaction process helps prevent denaturing of the material and/or thermal waste, while improving the supply of precursor gas and process productivity (pages 2, 7).
Regarding claim 12: Verghese et al. discloses that the heater of the system operates to heat the vessel housing to a temperature in range of about 50 to 250 degrees Celsius (par. 16, 100), which in the combination, would be the temperature at which the load cells (51) operate.
Regarding claim 13: Verghese et al. discloses that the source vessel (104) includes a lid (113) and lid attachment hardware, in addition to valves (420, 424, 428, 432, 436) attached to the lid (113), all of which can be considered lid attachment devices (pars. 48, 81 figures 1 and 4).
Regarding claim 14: Verghese et al. and Lee et al. disclose that the load cells (51) send a signal to a control unit (60) which receives the signal indicating the force applied by the vessel member (20) and the source material (SM) and calculates the weight of the remaining source material according to arithmetic conversion, requiring a conversion factor, to arrive at an amount of remaining source material (SM) (Lee et al. page 7).
Regarding claim 15: Verghese et al. and Lee et al. disclose the above combination in which the control unit (60) determines an amount of source material (SM) remaining by monitoring the weight signal sent by load cells (51) (Lee et al. pages. 6-7).
Claims 8, 9 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Verghese et al. in view of Lee et al. as applied to claims 1-7 and 10-15 above and further in view of Takoudis et al. (US 2015/0104575).
Regarding claims 8 and 16: Verghese et al. and Lee et al. disclose the above combination, with Verghese et al. disclosing that the valves (420, 424, 428, 432, 436) of the lid (113) attachment include a number of lines and associated valves, including an input line for inert gas (1302) to flow into one or more of the valves (420, 424) and pick up reactant vapor, then exit through outlet valves (432, 436) (par. 102, figure 13). Verghese et al. fails to explicitly disclose that these lines include a bellow or a coil. However, Takoudis et al. discloses a similar precursor vessel (14) treatment system where the valves on the various input and output lines are bellow-sealed pneumatic valves, such that the lines each include a bellow (par. 47, figure 1). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use a bellow-sealed valve like that of Takoudis et al. for the valves on the input and output lines of Verghese et al. because Takoudis et al. shows that it is a well-known functionally equivalent type of valve for this purpose (par. 47) and simple substitution of functional equivalents is not considered to be a patentable advance (MPEP 2143, 2144.06).
Regarding claim 9: Verghese et al. discloses that the trays (108, 112) include as a recess a serpentine path (674) which holds the solid precursor material (pars. 87-89, figure 6).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEPHEN A KITT whose telephone number is (571)270-7681. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-5pm.
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/S.A.K/
Stephen KittExaminer, Art Unit 1717
1/23/2026
/Dah-Wei D. Yuan/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1717