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 .
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1 – 3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) as being anticipated by JP 2021116209 A to Kato et al., hereinafter “Kato”. A machine translation of Kato was included with this action.
Kato is directed to a method of producing silica particles (sol), and a polishing method for producing a semiconductor wafer [0001].
Regarding claims 1 – 2, Kato teaches a colloidal silica material with an average particle diameter of 77 nm and having a CV value of 22.8% (Table 1) translated. A particle CV value stands for the Coefficient of Variation of a particle population. It is a standardized, dimensionless statistical metric used to measure the breadth or uniformity of a particle size distribution. The type of particle distribution, log-normal or gaussian is not known. With an average particle size of 77 nm (0.077 microns) and a CV of 20 – 30% means that there will be virtually negligible to zero amount of coarse particles reaching 0.2 microns (200 nm) or more.
Calculations: For a 20% CV, 1 standard deviation (SD) = 0.2 * 77 nm = 15.4 nm. For a 30% CV, 1 standard deviation (SD) = 0.3 * 77 nm = 23.1 nm. For both of these a 200 nm (0.2 micron) particle is 7.9 and 5.3 SD away from the mean. Therefore, the chance of finding a particle this large is effectively 0% for both a 20% and 30% CV. See Google search notes.
The silica particles obtained by the method of Kato can be used as a polishing composition [0073].
As to claim 3, Kato teaches a process for producing colloidal silica in Example 1 comprising a solution B-1, comprising 100 parts by mass of tetramethoxysilane (TEOS) and 25 parts by mass of methanol (tetramethoxysilane concentration of 80% by mass) into a solution (a-1) obtained by mixing 3.9 parts by mass water, 78.3 parts by mass methanol and 11.2 parts of a 10% by mass ammonia / water. A solution (C-1) comprising 9.1 parts by mass of water and 15.6 parts by mass of a 10% by mass ammonium water solution were mixed and added dropwise to the previous solution (Example 1).
Solution (A-1) comprises 3.9 parts by mass water (3.9 cc water), 78.3 parts by mass methanol (98.9 cc methanol at a density of 0.79 g.cc) and 11.2 parts of a 10% by mass ammonia / water (a volume of 11.7 cc at a density of 0.97 g/cc) relative to 100 g of tetramethoxysilane in the reaction liquid. The ammonia concentration is (11.2 X 0.10)g / (3.0 + 98.9 + 11.7) cc = 9.78 mg / cc = approximately 0.57 mol / L. The reaction liquid comprises 3.9 + 11.2*0.90 + 29.1 + 15.6*0.90 = 57.1 g of water per 100 g of tetramethoxysilane. This corresponds to 4.8 mol of water to 1 mol of tetramethoxysilane. Because solution (B-1) in Example 1 comprises 100 g TEOS (97.1 cc), 25.0g methanol (31.6 cc) the methanol concentration is 25 g / (97.1 + 31.6) cc = 0.19 g/cc = approximately 6.1 mol/L. The values for alkaline catalyst (ammonia), water and alcohol concentration in the alkoxysilane all lie within the claimed ranges.
Conclusion
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PAS 9/28/26
/PETER A SALAMON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1759
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