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 for US Patent Application No. 18/450932 by Stuart et al. Claims 1-22 are currently pending and have been fully considered. 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 appl icant regards as his invention. Claims 1-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 1 recites a method comprising “ patterning one or more slits on a substrate with photolithography; cleaning and processing of the substrate; depositing dark mirror coatings; and removing photoresist in a lift-off procedure to reveal the slits in the dark mirror coating ”. However, the order of the steps recited in claim 1 is not specified . I t is unclear in claim 1, based on its current claim construction, in which order the claimed steps occur . Therefore, claim 1 is considered to be indefinite. Claims 2-8 are concurrently rejected as being indefinite because they depend from rejected claim 1. Claim 9 recites a method comprising “ patterning one or more slits on a substrate with photolithography; cleaning and processing of the substrate, wherein the cleaning and processing of the substrate comprises removing residual contamination and promoting an adhesion of the dark mirror coating; depositing dark mirror coatings; and removing photoresist in a lift-off procedure to reveal the slits in the dark mirror coating ”. However, the order of the steps recited in claim 9 is not specified. It is unclear in claim 9, based on its current claim construction, in which order the claimed steps occur. Therefore, claim 9 is considered to be indefinite. Claims 10-15 are concurrently rejected as being indefinite because they depend from rejected claim 9. Claim 16 recites a method comprising “ patterning one or more slits on a substrate with photolithography; cleaning and processing of the substrate; depositing dark mirror coatings; and removing photoresist in a lift-off procedure to reveal the slits in the dark mirror coating ”. However, the order of the steps recited in claim 16 is not specified. It is unclear in claim 16, based on its current claim construction, in which order the claimed steps occur. Therefore, claim 16 is considered to be indefinite. Claims 17-22 are concurrently rejected as being indefinite because they depend from rejected claim 16. Claims 1, 9 and 16 recite the limitation "removing photoresist". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims because the term photoresist is not previously recited. Claims 1, 9 and 16 recite the limitation "the slits in the dark mirror coating”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims because the limitations “one or more slits” and “dark mirror coatings” are previously recited, but not the specific limitation “the slits in the dark mirror coating”. Claims 3, 10 and 16 recite limitation "the photoresist process” . There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims. Claim s 4, 11 and 18 recite limitation "a slit mask substrate”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims. Claim s 4, 11 and 18 recite limitation "the IR filter”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims. Claims 4, 11 and 18 recite limitation "remove with oxygen plasma Asher”. The aforementioned limitation is considered to be indefinite because it is unclear what is being removed. Claims 4, 11 and 18 recite limitation " if particulates, persist cleaning with detergent and repeat acetone/IPA/DI water rinse ”. The aforementioned limitation is considered to be indefinite because it is unclear how many times the cleaning and water rinse step is performed. Claims 6 , 13 and 20 recite limitation “applying room temperature to the substrate”. The aforementioned limitation is unclear. Claims 7, 14 and 21 recite limitation “contact mode”. The aforementioned limitation is unclear. 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 1-4, 9-11, 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Weissenreider et al. (US 2012/0182606 A1) , herein referred to as Weissenreider in view of Zalkovskij et al. (US 2024/0361496 A1), herein referred to as Zalkovskij . With regard to claims 1-4, 9-11, 16 and 17, Weissenreider teaches ( Claims 13-20, Figures 1 -4 , 8 and [0038-0044 , 0068-0069 ]) a method of patterning a substrate (patterning one or more slits) with photolithography, coating a mirror substrate with an antireflection coating (analogous to depositing dark mirror coatings) , patterning the antireflection coating by applying a resist layer that can be patterned by irradiation to the antireflection coating and/or to the mirror substrate and then subsequently removing the resist layer by a lift-off process. Weissenreider does not appear to teach or suggest cleaning and processing of the substrate for removing contamination and promoting adhesion of the dark mirror coating via oxyg en plasma processing. However, Zalkovskij teaches (Claim 1) a method comprising providing a hardmask layer on a layer that comprises a plurality of sublayers each of which has a respective index of refraction that differs from the index of refraction of at least one of the other sublayers, wherein at least one of the sublayers has an index of refraction in a range of 2 to 4, and wherein the layer comprising the plurality of sublayers is supported by a substrate; depositing a resist layer on the hardmask layer; pressing a surface of a tool into the resist layer, wherein the surface of the tool includes features that are imprinted into the resist layer; and releasing the tool from the resist layer . Following the release of the tool from the resist layer, Zalkovskij teaches [0033 and 0056 ] performing a directional oxygen plasma treatment which would remove residual resist and contaminants from the layered substrate. Therefore, at the time of filing date of the instant application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the method taught by Weissenreider to include the known technique of applying oxygen plasma taught by Zalkovskij in order to reduce the number of contaminants remaining after the fabrication of an optical device for the purpose of minimizing stray light defects. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 5-8, 12-15 and 18-22 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. 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