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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claim 7-8 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.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 03/25/2026.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-2 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Spurlin et al. (US20150376791A1) in view of Raaikmakers et al. (US6113698).
Regarding Claim 1, Spurlin teaches a device for treating a substrate including a metal seed layer (abstract);
The device comprising:
A chamber body;
A controller configured to execute a reducing process by driving a plasma supply unit to supply plasma to the surface (Abstract, [0008]);
However, the prior art does not teach a hot plate configured to set the substrate and degassing by driving the hot plate to remove an adsorbate before plasma supplying. However, Raaikmakers teaches a degassing apparatus for clamping and heating a wafer without exposing the wafter (object) to external stress (Abstract); where the apparatus comprises a heated substrate support (hot plate) where the heated substrate support has a plurality of openings which diffuse gas into the chamber (Col. 5, Lines 1-10) to degass the substrate (Col. 4, 15-25) for the purpose of driving off absorbed water vapor and impurities (See Col. 1, Lines 15-25); therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to modify the apparatus of Spurlin to include a hot plate configured to set the substrate and degass the substrate to remove absorbate and impurities before plasma reduction.
Regarding Claim 2, Raaikmakers teaches a heat conducting gas medium is used to heat to the desired temperature during degassing (Col. 9, Lines 25-50) (and is also controlled by the controller responsible for degassing)
Regarding Claim 5, it is implied that a power supply line (electric wire) is electrically connected to the hot plate; and the degassing unit creates a greater pressure along the front side of the substrate compared to the chamber (See Col. 8, Lines 1-10)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3-4 and 6-7 is 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The closest prior art of record is Spurlin et al. (US20150376791A1) in view of Raaikmakers et al. (US6113698) as used above, which teaches a substrate processing device for degassing and plasma reducing a metal seed layer on the substrate; however the prior art does not teach or suggest each and every valve and bypass limitation of claim 3; the support configured to form a gap as required by claim 4; a diffusion member formed from sintered alumina as required by claim 6; and the film forming chamber limitation of claim 7.
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/RICARDO D MORALES/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1738
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