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
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-11 and 20 in the reply filed on 02/11/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 12-19 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.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 02/11/2026.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-9 and 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hanawa et al. (US 7,292,428 B2).
Claim 1: Hanawa et al. discloses a substrate processing apparatus (as depicted in Figure 1) that includes an electrostatic chuck body (8 of Figure 1) configured to chuck a substrate using an electrostatic force (Col. 2, Lines 23-30); a substrate lifting device (18,22 of Figure 1) installed at the electrostatic chuck body and configured to ascend such that the substrate is seated thereon in a substrate loading operation (Col. 3, Lines 43-49), or to lift the substrate from the electrostatic chuck body in a substate unloading operation (Col. 4, Lines 9-39); and a controller (64 of Figure 2) configured to apply a control signal to the substrate lifting device (Col. 3, Line 43 to Col. 4, Line 39), wherein the substrate lifting device includes: at least one lift pin (18 of Figure 1; Col. 2, Lines 30-32) movable so as to be in contact with the substrate (Col. 3, Lines 43-46); a lift pin moving table (26 of Figure 1), configured to support the at least one lift pin thereon and to be vertically movable (Col. 2, Lines 30,-42); a moving table lifting device (30,32,34 of Figure 1) configured to vertically move the lift pin moving table (Col. 2, Lines 38-42); and a load measurement device (36 of Figure 1) installed between the at least one lift pin and the lift pin moving table or installed between the lift pin moving table and the moving table lifting device, wherein the load measurement device is configured to measure a load applied to the at least one lift pin (Col. 2, Line 42 to Col. 3, Line 9).
Claim 2: Hanawa et al. further discloses before the substrate unloading operation, the controller is configured to apply a preliminarily ascend control signal to the moving table lifting device to preliminarily raise up the lift pin to a de-chucking check vertical level at which a de-chucked state of the substrate is identified (Col. 4, Lines 20-39).
Claim 3: Hanawa et al. further discloses that the de-chucking check vertical level is a vertical level within an elastic deformation range of the substrate as a range in which the substrate is raised up such that the substrate is not damaged from a state in which the substrate has been chucked on the electrostatic chuck body (Col. 4, Lines 35-39).
Claim 4: Hanawa et al. further discloses that the at least one lift pin has been preliminarily raised up to the de-chucking check vertical level, the controller is configured to receive load measurement information from the load measurement device (Col. 4, Lines 24-29), and to compare the load measurement information with a reference value (Col. 4, Lines 24-29), and to determine the de- chucked state of the substrate based on the comparing result, and to output the determined de-chucked state (Col. 4, Lines 24-35).
Claim 5: Hanawa et al. further discloses that when the load measurement information is within a range of the reference value, the controller is configured to determine that de-chucking of the substate is successful, wherein when the load measurement information exceeds the reference value, the controller is configured to determine that de-chucking of the substate fails (Col. 4, Lines 24-39).
Claim 6: Hanawa et al. further discloses that when the load measurement information is smaller than the reference value, the controller is configured to determine that the substrate has escaped from the electrostatic chuck body (Col. 4, Lines 29-35).
Claim 7: Hanawa et al. further discloses that when the load measurement information deviates from the reference value, the controller is configured to apply a lift pin movement stop control signal to the moving table lifting device, and to apply a notification signal to a notification device (Col. 4, Lines 35-39).
Claim 8: Hanawa et al. further discloses that in the substrate loading operation, the controller is configured to receive load measurement information from the load measurement device, and to compare the received load measurement information with a reference value, and to determine an aligned state of the substrate based on the comparing result, and to output the determined aligned state of the substrate (Col. 3, Line 59 to Col. 4, Line 11).
Claim 9: Hanawa et al. further discloses that the load measurement device includes a load cell or a strain gauge with a resistance pattern whose resistance value changes when being deformed under a load (Col. 2, Line 43-46, Hanawa et al. discloses monitoring voltage changes which vary based on resistance value changes).
Claim 20: This claim is rejected under similar reasoning as that applied to claims 1-9 above since no further limitations are presented within the claim that has not already addressed in regard to claims 1-9.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10 and 11 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JASON L VAUGHAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5704. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Friday 8:30 - 5:00.
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/JASON L VAUGHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3726 /JASON L VAUGHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3726