Non-Final Rejection
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . Following a preliminary amendment, claims 1-4, 7, 10, 13-14, 16, 18-20, 23-24, 28, 30-31, and 33-35 are pending.
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 1-4, 7, 13-14, 16, 18-20, 23-24, and 33-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 9,819,136 (“Ahlawat”).
Regarding claim 1, Ahlawat discloses (see Fig. 1 general discussion starting col. 7 line 40, see also Fig. 5-7, col. 16 line 48 to col. 19 line 19) a gas control apparatus associated with a gas discharge chamber 135 within a light source 100, the gas control apparatus comprising:
a monitoring system 155 configured to estimate one or more performance parameters of the gas discharge chamber (see col. 21 lines 10-22 and line 64 to col. 22 line 10, Fig. 5 monitoring step 535); and
a control system 160 in communication with the monitoring system 155 and the gas discharge chamber 135, the control system configured to, during standard mode of operation of the gas discharge chamber and in between performance of gas recovery schemes on the gas discharge chamber that use a gas recovery setting (see restore injection schemes, col. 13 lines 32-35):
compare the estimated one or more performance parameters to respective thresholds (Fig. 5, steps 540,545);
determine whether the gas recovery setting needs to be adjusted based on the comparison (Fig. 5, yes or no after step 545); and
adjust the value for the gas recovery setting based on the determination (Fig. 5, steps 550-560, adjust the amount of buffer gas by selecting and applying restore gas maint. scheme).
Regarding claim 2, gas supply system 150 injects/removes gas in accord with the gas settings under control of control system 160. See discussion of Fig. 1.
Regarding claims 3-4, it is implicit that the control system can save an adjusted value for the gas recovery setting and access it when performing the next recovery scheme. For example, in col. 15 lines 56 to col. 16 line 12 it is explained that the system can change the temporal frequency of pumping, or can pump a different amount of gas than was pumped before if it is determined that a parameter is out of range. In either case, if we are changing from the prior value, it is implicit that a prior value must have been saved and is now being accessed.
Regarding claim 7, Ahlawat may measure energy of the beam, one of the performance parameters claimed. Col. 17 lines 27-38.
Regarding claim 13, this is a gas recovery after refill scheme. Col. 16 lines 31-42.
Regarding claim 14, Ahlawat Fig. 3, discussion starting col. 10 line 9, shows that the system may be used with to monitor at least one gas discharge chamber of a two-stage light source that includes a master oscillator gas discharge chamber and a power amplifier gas discharge chamber.
Regarding claim 16, the discharge chamber is a gas discharge stage of a laser that produces population inversion when the gas is pumped. Col. 7 lines 50-60.
Claim 18 is a method claim that is basically the operation of claim 1, and is met for the same reasons.
Claim 19 is a method claim that is basically the operation of claim 3, and is met for the same reasons.
Claim 20 is a method claim that is basically the operation of claim 4, and is met for the same reasons.
Claim 23 is a method claim that is basically the operation of claim 7, and is met for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 24, in Ahlawat Fig. 5 the system in step 545 determines whether any of the monitored characteristics will be outside of acceptable range, i.e. outside of threshold. If not it does nothing and goes back to the monitoring step, i.e. it determines that the gas recovery setting does not need to be adjusted.
Claim 33 is a method claim that is basically the operation of claim 13, and is met for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 34, see Fig. 5 steps 535,540, monitor and analyze operating characteristics. See also Fig. 6, specifics of those steps.
Claim 35 is essentially a combination of claims 1 and 4, except that certain things are done by various “modules.” These features are deemed to be met for the same reasons as claims 1 and 4.
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.
Claims 10, 30, and 31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ahlawat in view of US 2004/022293 (“Rule”).
Regarding claims 10 and 30, Ahlawat describes the limitations of the parent claims as above, but it is not necessarily disclosed that estimates of performance parameters are done at periodic intervals during standard operation between gas recovery schemes. Rule shows a similar excimer laser system with automatic control of the gas in the gas discharge system. Abstract. Rule teaches that between each burst, i.e. during standard operation of the discharge system and between recovery schemes, the monitoring system will estimate performance parameters such as by monitoring and estimating performance parameters such as energy, burst average voltage, burst length, interval, etc. [0122]-[0134]. Again, this is done at a periodic interval of between each burst. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to do such periodic checking because the system needs to be checked to determine if an injection is needed, and operation is fixed during a burst so it is natural to check periodically between bursts, as taught by Rule.
Claim 31 is dependent on claim 30 and just requires that the parameters are compared to a threshold when the periodic estimations are done. This is the entire point, to check the parameters vs a threshold to see if adjustments need to be made, therefore it is implicit or at least obvious that such comparisons would be done when Rule does the periodic estimates. For example, Rule will set a new OP point if the voltage has changed, and this is used in part to determine if a refill/inject state is needed.
Claim 28 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ahlawat in view of US 2015/0188274 (“Wakabayashi”)
Regarding claim 28, Ahlawat describes the limitations of parent claim 18 as above, but does not show adjusting the value for the gas recovery setting based on the determination comprises adjusting the value for the gas recovery setting by an incremental amount and between a maximum and a minimum extreme value.
Wakabayashi describes a similar excimer laser system where operating parameters are measured and compared to expected values to determine that gas in the discharge chamber needs to be exchanged. [0008]-[0010]. It additionally shows that the recovery pressure setting may be done by adjusting by an incremental amount between a minimum and maximum extreme. For example, In Fig. 11-12, discussion starting [0156], it is described that during a gas exchange gas is introduced (steps S610-S614) and exhausted (S618-S622) repeatedly, i.e. in increments, until the desired values are reached between min and max Pin and Ph. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to do so incrementally because Wakabayashi says this can help the exchange be done at a lower cost. [0168].
Conclusion
Other references are cited showing the use of operating parameters to control the amount or composition of laser gas in a discharge chamber.
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/JAMES A MENEFEE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2828
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