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 species a) in the reply filed on 05/11/2026 is acknowledged.
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.
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 7-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maeda et al. (US Pat. No.: 9,530,695 B2) (hereinafter Maeda) in view of George (US Pub. No.: 2009/251699 A1) (hereinafter George).
Regarding claim 1, Maeda discloses an apparatus for chucking a wafer, the apparatus comprising: a vacuum chuck (11) arranged under the wafer (W) with a ring frame (F) to fix the wafer using vacuum; a plurality of clampers (12) directly making contact with the ring frame to downwardly compress the ring frame in a vertical direction. Maeda is silent about alignment blocks.
George discloses aligning semiconductor wafers includes equipment for positioning a first surface semiconductor wafer directly opposite to a first surface of a second semiconductor wafer equipment for aligning a first structure on the first semiconductor wafer with a second structure on the first surface of the second semiconductor wafer. The aligning equipment comprises at least one movable alignment device configured to be moved during alignment and to be inserted between the first surface of the first semiconductor wafer and the first surface of the second semiconductor wafer. The positioning equipment are vibrationally and mechanically isolated from the alignment device motion (Abstract).
Give the wealth of knowledge, it would have been obvious to utilize the alignment device as taught by George within the apparatus as taught by Maeda. The benefit of doing so would have been to assure the ring frame is aligned to vacuum chuck during processing.
Regarding claim 2, Maeda discloses wherein each of the plurality clampers are spaced apart from each other by a constant distance around the ring frame (Fig.2a-2b, RC 12, F).
Regarding claims 7-9, George discloses aligning semiconductor wafers which mechanism to rotate the wafer plate (¶009) and cameras (210a, 210b) used to align the wafer surfaces to each other. George further references marks are used as guide to positioning equipment for aligning the first surface of the first and second semiconductor wafer parallel to each other (¶006) Thus, Maeda discloses structure or rotary aligner and camera to align wafer during manufacturing.
Give the wealth of knowledge, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize rotary aligner, cameras and guide mechanism as taught by George within an apparatus as taught by Maeda to align the ring frame to vacuum chuck. The benefit of doing so would have been to assure the wafer and vacuum chuck are properly aligned.
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maeda and George as applied to claims 1 and 2 above, and further in view of Harada et al. (US Pub. No.: 2021/0111073 A1) (hereinafter Harada).
Regarding claim 3, the limitations of claim 1 are taught by the combined teaching of Maeda and George. They are both silent about vertical actuator moving the clamping block in vertical direction.
Harada also disclose an apparatus for processing wafer. The apparatus comprises clamping blocks positioned to ring frame (7), and vertical actuator (28, 30) moving the clamping block in vertical direction (Fig. 10a-10b). The benefit of doing so would have been to apply tension to wafer during processing.
Given the wealth of knowledge, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize vertical actuators to move the clamps in vertical direction as taught by Harada within the apparatus as taught by the combined teaching of Maeda and George. The benefit of doing so would have been to apply tension to wafer during processing.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VISHAL I PATEL whose telephone number is (571)270-7660. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9-5.
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/VISHAL I PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1746
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