DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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
Claims #16-20 are withdrawn (and canceled) from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking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 July 8, 2026.
Claims #1-15, 21-25 are under examination in the present Office Action.
Specifications
The title is objected to because a more descriptive title is requested.
Drawing Objections
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the “memory device region between the first and second interconnect regions” of claims 1 and 11 and similar limitations in claim 21 must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 112(b)
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.
Claims 1-15 and 21-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 112, 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 pre-AIA the applicant, regards as the invention.
As to claims 1 and 11, it is unclear how a memory device region 233 is between the first 231 and second 232 interconnect regions when the memory device region is wholly formed within the second interconnect region in instant FIG. 2.
As to claim 21, it is unclear how a plurality of ferroelectric random access memory cells 233 are between the first plurality of interconnect structures 231 and the second plurality of interconnect structures 232 when the memory device region comprising ferroelectric random access memory cells is wholly formed within the second interconnect region comprising the second plurality of interconnect structures in instant FIG. 2.
As to claim 12, there is a lack of antecedent basis for “the plurality of electrical components” because parent claim 11 recites “one or more electrical components” which may have at most one electrical component, thereby leading to a difference in the number of electrical components.
No Prior Art Applied
The Examiner was unable to find prior art applicable to the claims as presently written.
As to broadest claim 21, Wei et al. (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2022/0406916 A1), hereafter “Wei”, teaches in FIG. 1 a first plurality of interconnect structures 102+108a above a substrate 102; a second plurality of interconnect structures 114+112a above the first plurality of interconnect structures. Although ferroelectric switching layer 110 is formed between the first and second plurality of interconnect structures, Wei does not teach a plurality of ferroelectric random access memory cells between the first and second plurality of interconnect structures because 110 is only a ferroelectric switching layer. Similar reasons apply to claims 1 and 15.
Conclusion
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/SUBERR L CHI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2893
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