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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-10 in the reply filed on 6/19/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 11-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.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 6/19/2026.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 5/17/2024, 7/2/2024, 3/20/2025, and 6/16/2025 have been considered by the examiner.
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 1-2 and 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Okita et al. (PG Pub U.S 2016/0091892).
Regarding claim 1, Okita teaches a substrate treatment apparatus (abstract; fig 3) comprising: a substrate holder (10) that holds a substrate (para 0045); a liquid nozzle (30/33) that supplies a treatment liquid to said substrate held by said substrate holder (para 0049, 0051, and 0063); a guard (20/21/22) that has a cylindrical shape (seen from fig 3), surrounds said substrate holder (para 0048-0049), and receives said treatment liquid scattered from a peripheral edge of said substrate (para 0048-0049); a guard raising and lowering mechanism that raises and lowers said guard (para 0048); a camera (72) that is provided obliquely above said substrate holder (para 0052-0053 and figs 3) and captures an image of an image capturing region including said guard to generate a captured image (para 0052-0055 and 0058-0059); and a controller (80) that outputs a control signal for moving said guard to a predetermined height position to said guard raising and lowering mechanism (para 0048 and claims 1-6), and determines presence or absence of an abnormality related to a position or a shape of said guard based on said captured image (claims 1-6).
Regarding claim 2, Okita teaches wherein said controller determines presence or absence of said abnormality based on a determination region including a part of said guard in said captured image (para 0052-0055 and 0058-0059).
Regarding claim 8, Okita teaches wherein said controller determines that said guard is normal when similarity between said determination region and a normal reference image is equal to or greater than a threshold (para 0070-0076), and said threshold is set to be lower than a value of similarity between said determination region of said captured image captured when said guard is located at said predetermined height position and a droplet is attached to said guard and said reference image (para 0048, 0055, and 0070-0076).
Regarding claim 9, Okita teaches a gas nozzle that supplies gas to said guard to blow off droplet attached to said guard (para 0044).
Allowable Subject Matter
The following is an examiner’s statement for reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The closest prior art of record is Okita et al. (PG Pub U.S 2016/0091892).
Okita teaches the limitations of claims 1-2 as detailed above.
Okita fails to teach wherein said determination region includes a first determination region and a second determination region, said first determination region and said second determination region are set on opposite sides to each other with respect to a minor axis of a virtual ellipse along an upper end peripheral edge portion of said guard in said captured image, and said controller determines that said guard is normal when temporarily determining that said guard is normal in both said first determination region and said second determination region as recited in claim 3.
Okita fails to teach wherein said determination region includes at least a part of an upper end peripheral edge portion of said guard when said guard is located at said predetermined height position, and is set to a region not including said substrate as recited in claim 4.
Okita fails to teach wherein said predetermined height position is a guard standby position where an upper end peripheral edge portion of said guard is lower than an upper surface of a spin base of said substrate holder facing a lower surface of said substrate in a vertical direction, and said determination region is set to a region including at least a part of a peripheral edge portion on a front side as viewed from said camera in said upper end peripheral edge portion of said guard when said guard is located at said predetermined height position as recited in claim 5.
Okita fails to teach wherein said predetermined height position is a guard treatment position where an upper end peripheral edge portion of said guard is above an upper surface of said substrate held by said substrate holder, and said determination region is set to a region including a peripheral edge portion on a back side as viewed from said camera in the upper end peripheral edge portion of said guard when said guard is located at said predetermined height position as recited in claim 6.
Okita teaches a gas nozzle that supplies gas to said guard to blow off droplet attached to said guard but fails to teach wherein said controller includes: a first step of determining that said guard is normal when similarity between said determination region and a normal reference image is equal to or greater than a second threshold higher than a first threshold; a second step of supplying gas to said gas nozzle toward a portion to be captured of said guard that appears in said determination region when said similarity is less than said second threshold and equal to or greater than said first threshold; a third step of causing said camera to capture said image capturing region and generate said captured image after said second step; and a fourth step of determining presence or absence of said abnormality based on said similarity between said determination region of said captured image generated in said third step and said reference image, said first threshold is set to be lower than a first value of similarity between said determination region of said captured image captured when said guard is located at said predetermined height position and a droplet is attached to said portion to be captured of said guard and said reference image, and said second threshold is set to be lower than a second value of similarity between said determination region of said captured image captured when said guard is located at said predetermined height position and no droplets are attached to said portion to be captured of said guard and said reference image, and to be higher than said first value as recited in claim 10.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PRADHUMAN PARIHAR whose telephone number is (571)270-1633. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 10am-6pm EST.
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/P.P/Examiner, Art Unit 1714
/KAJ K OLSEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1714
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