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 .
This is the initial office action for US Patent Application No. 18/574367 by Miyata et al.
Claims 1-8 are currently pending and have been fully considered.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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, 5 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Shao et al. (CN 111662267 A), herein referred to as Shao. Shao is provided in Applicant’s IDS filed 12/27/2023.
Regarding claims 1, 5 and 6, Shao teaches (Claim 1 and Examples 1-3) a photoresist acid-generating resin containing a dioxobicyclo[2,2,2]octanedicarboxylate structure. The dioxobicyclo[2,2,2]octanedicarboxylate structure taught by Shao satisfies the claimed composition recited in claim 1 and the claimed polymer recited in claim 6. The photoresist acid-generating resin taught by Shao is employed in a photolithography process (resist pattern forming method).
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 3 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shao et al. (CN 111662267 A), herein referred to as Shao, in view of Bi et al. (CN 112645923 A), herein referred to as Bi. Shao and Bi are provided in Applicant’s IDS filed 12/27/2023.
The Shao reference does not appear to explicitly teach the limitations of claims 3 and 4 directed to further chemical composition limitations for claim 1. However, from the same field of technology, Bi recites a photoresist resin monomer containing a photoacid generator.
In view of claims 3 and 4, Bi teaches (Claims 1 and 2, Examples 1-3) a photoresist resin monomer composition having structural units that satisfy claims 3 and 4. Therefore, at the time of the filing date of the present application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the photoresist acid-generating resin taught by Shao with the photoresist resin monomer composition taught by Bi in order to optimize the photosensitive properties of the composition while also having improved acid diffusion control properties.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2 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:
Claims 7 and 8 are considered to be allowable because the prior art does not teach or suggest the specified compounds.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Hatakeyama et al. (US 2020/0089112 A1) disclose a chemically amplified resist composition comprising a sulfonium salt quencher that helps reduce line width roughness of line patterns when the resist composition is photolithographically patterned.
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/STEWART A FRASER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1724
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