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 .
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.
Claims 17-20 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. The issue lies with the wording “and/or” in independent claim 17. It is impossible to determine if the Applicant intends for this to be an “and” clause or an “or” clause. The examiner would like to note that amending the claim to read solely as the “and” limitation would make the claim allowable. As none of claims 18-20 clarify the “an/or” issue, these claims must likewise be rejected under 35 USC 112 second paragraph.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-16 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: In regards to independent claims 1 and 15 (representing an apparatus and method of using said apparatus), though US Patent Application Publication Numbers 20190353975, 20180040452 and 20170213688 all teach some of the limitations of independent claims 1 and 15, these references fail to teach a controller configured to implement a plurality of selectable landing energies…wherein the controller is configured to select the corresponding potentials such that a spatial relationship between an image plane of the system and all of the control electrodes and objective electrodes is the same for each of the selectable landing energies. The examiner would like to further note that while the Internation Search Report cites WO 2021/078352 A1 as an “x” reference, this document does not mention image planes within the document. Claims 2-14 and 16-17 are allowed by virtue of their dependency on the allowed base claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NICOLE M IPPOLITO whose telephone number is (571)270-7449. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6:00am-4:00pm Mountain Time.
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/NICOLE M IPPOLITO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2881