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 .
IDS
The IDS document(s) filed on May 10, 2024 has been considered. Copies of the PTO-1449 documents are herewith enclosed with this office action.
Claim Objection
As to claim 9, the Examiner suggests “by a chemical vapor deposition”.
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 1-10 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 claim 1, it is unclear if a roughness treatment is actually performed because the limitation “to be subjected to a roughness treatment” (emphasis added) is incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. Here, the phrasing “to be subjected to a roughness treatment” merely expresses an intent to perform a future step of a roughness treatment but does not recite a present roughness treatment step. Contrast with the claim construction of claims 7-8 which recites “subjected to a surface treatment” and is a present, actual process step.
As to claims 2-6, it is unclear if the recited process steps are actually performed because they all claim dependence from “to be subjected to a roughness treatment” of parent claim 1.
No Prior Art Applied
The Examiner was unable to find prior art applicable to the claims as presently written.
Wang et al. (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2018/0233400 A1), as cited in the IDS and hereafter “Wang”, is the closest prior art reference. Wang teaches in FIG. 3 providing a first substrate 44. Although one might be inclined to call the handle substrate 42 the first substrate, the handle substrate 42 is not subjected to a roughness treatment to form an uneven morphology because it is the semiconductor oxide layer 44 that is instead subject to a roughness treatment, e.g. cleaning step. See Wang, ¶ [0038]. If Wang is used to teach forming a surface treatment layer 46, wherein the surface treatment layer has an uneven surface morphology, then Wang does not teach forming a polysilicon layer on the surface treatment layer because layer 48 is buried oxide and layer 50 is a single crystal silicon layer. Further, Wang does not teach the surface treatment layer 46 as having an uneven surface morphology nor does it inherently have an uneven surface morphology simply because it is formed on top of the first substrate 44 with an uneven morphology.
Prior Art Not Relied Upon
The following prior art was not relied upon but is made of record:
Lottes et al. (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2024/0258155 A1)
Conclusion
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/SUBERR L CHI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2893
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