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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
1. Claims 1, 2, 5-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al (USPN 2016/0035610) in view of Miyazaki et al (USPN 2024/0282612).
Regarding claims 1, 2, Park discloses a wafer placement table (a wafer table 1 shown in figure 1) comprising:
a ceramic plate (a ceramic plate 150, see par. 0081, and figure 1) having a wafer placement surface on its upper surface and a built-in electrode (electrodes 155);
a thermal diffusion plate (a metal plate 120, see par. 0120) provided on a lower surface of the ceramic plate (150);
a first adhesive layer (a first adhesive layer 131) bonding the ceramic plate (150) and the thermal diffusion plate (120) together;
a cooling plate (a cooling plate 110) that is provided on a lower surface of the thermal diffusion plate (120), and internally includes a refrigerant flow path (112, see par. 0077); and
a second adhesive layer (a second adhesive layer 132) provided between the thermal diffusion plate (120) and the cooling plate (110), wherein the second adhesive layer including the adhesive part bonding the thermal diffusion plate (120) and the cooling plate (110) together
Park does not explicitly disclose the second adhesive layer includes a hollow part as claimed.
Miyazaki discloses an electrostatic chuck device (10) (see figure 1) discloses a second adhesive layer (a second adhesive layer 300, see par. 0058) having an adhesive part and a hollow part (spaces 340), the hollow part being a gap provided between a plate (a plate 100) and a cooling plate (200), wherein the cooling plate (220) includes a communication path (281, figure 9b) that communicates with the hollow part (340) from a lower surface or a lateral surface of the cooling plate (200).
It 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 to have modified the second adhesive layer of Park to incorporate a second adhesive layer including adhesive parts and hollow parts as disclosed by Miyazaki in order to provide uniformly a temperature distribution on a wafer table so that enhancing a wafer processing performance.
Regarding claims 7, 8, Park does not explicitly disclose the second adhesive layer includes ratio and the hollow part is switchable as claimed.
Miyazaki discloses an electrostatic chuck device (10) (see figure 1) discloses a second adhesive layer (a second adhesive layer 300, see par. 0058) includes a ratio of a bonding area of the adhesive part with respect to an entire area of the second adhesive layer in a plan view is 10% or greater and 50% or less (see figure 2), wherein the hollow part (the spaces 340) is switchable between low and high thermal resistance states (by the inlet 281).
It 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 to have modified the second adhesive layer of Park to incorporate a second adhesive layer as disclosed by Miyazaki in order to provide uniformly a temperature distribution on a wafer table so that enhancing a wafer processing performance.
Regarding claim 5, Park discloses a thickness of the first adhesive layer (131) is less than a thickness of the second adhesive layer (132) (see par. 0113).
Regard claim 6, Park discloses a thermal resistance of the first adhesive layer (131) in an up-down direction is lower than a thermal resistance of the adhesive part of the second adhesive layer (132) in an up-down direction (the first adhesive layer 131 has a smaller thickness than the thickness of the second adhesive layer 132, so the first adhesive layer 131 has a lower thermal resistance, see par. 0112-0113).
Allowable Subject Matter
2. Claims 3-4, 9-10 are 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.
Conclusion
3. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANNY NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-2054. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00AM-4:30PM.
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/DANNY NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2838