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 .
Examiner Note’s
The examiner believes that the claims are have a practical application of optical droplet metrology. Therefore a 101 rejection does not apply.
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.
Claim(s) 1 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hauf (200150373305) in view of Saylor (“A method for increasing depth of field during droplet imaging”).
Regarding claim 1, Hauf teaches a method of measuring a droplet, the method comprising (see par. 23):
discharging a droplet onto a substrate (par. 23, medium capable of receiving droplets);
imaging the droplet with a measurement part spaced apart from the droplet in one direction (see figure 2 and pars. 42-43, camera);
Saylor teaches measuring a distance between the droplet and the measurement part (see section 2, distance between sphere and camera); and
correcting an area of the droplet (section III and IV, section III says that if zd is known and appropriate magnification can be applied. Section IV says the appropriate magnification ratio can be applied to the drop image size to provide accurate drop size measurements).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Hauf the magnification correction technique as taught by Saylor in order to improve accuracy based on distance.
Regarding claim 16, see the rejection of claim 1.
Claim(s) 2-3, 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hauf (200150373305) in view of Saylor (“A method for increasing depth of field during droplet imaging”) in further view of Sasaki (20130308018).
Regarding claim 2, Sasaki teaches wherein the measuring of the distance between the droplet and the measurement part includes: measuring a distance in which the droplet deviates from a focal position of the measurement part (see par. 43 and 47, measuring at a defocused state).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Hauf and Saylor the ability to measure distance when there is a deviation from a focal position as taught by Sasaki. The reason is to measure allow measurement from both focus position as taught by Saylor and an unfocused position taught by Sasaki.
Regarding claim 3, see pars. 43-44 of Sasaki.
Regarding claim 18, see the rejection of claim 3
Regarding claim 20, pars. 43 and 47 of Sasaki which teaches calculating how much out of focus it is.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-15, 17 and 19 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 limitation of determining of the grayscale change of the edge part of the first image of the droplet imaged by the measurement part, the grayscale change of the edge part of the first image is compared with a grayscale change of an edge part of a second image of the droplet imaged by the measurement part at the focal position.
Other dependent claims depend upon claim 4 and are allowable because of its dependencies.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HADI AKHAVANNIK whose telephone number is (571)272-8622. The examiner can normally be reached 9 AM - 5 PM Monday to Friday.
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/HADI AKHAVANNIK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2676
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