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 .
Response to Amendment
This Office Action is responsive to remarks filed on 07/07/2026. Applicant amends claims 1, 9, and 12 and adds new claims 13-16. Applicant submits that support for the amendments and new claims may be found in at least the paragraphs [0037]-[0038], [0050]-[0051], [0081]-[0089], [0094]-[0096], and [0097]-[0101] of the published Application. Applicant submits no new matter is added. Upon entry of this Amendment, claims 1-16 will be pending, of which claims 1, 9, and 12 are still independent. A complete response to applicants remarks and a Notice of Allowability follows here below.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, at pages 9-13, with respect to claim rejections under 35 U.S.C. §102 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishikawa (US 20190025226 A1) in combination with Amanullah (US 20150138341 A1).
Regarding Claim 1: (Currently Amended) Ishikawa discloses a processing apparatus (Refer to para [002]; “Example embodiments relate to an imaging apparatus and an imaging method.”) for subject surface image composition (Refer to para [035]; “FIG. 2 illustrates a photographing surface 191 (which may correspond to a surface of the image sensor) on which an image is focused by the image optical system to be captured by the image sensor.”) the processing apparatus (Refer to para [032]; “The imaging device 1, for example, may form an optical semiconductor inspection apparatus.”) comprising: one or more processors (Refer to para [033]; “The computer may be a general purpose computer or may be dedicated hardware or firmware (e.g., an electronic or optical circuit, such as application-specific hardware, such as, for example, a digital signal processor (DSP) or a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)). The photographing unit 19 may comprise an image sensor, such as a charge coupled device CCD image sensor or a CMOS image sensor.”) configured to: shift one or more captured images selected from a plurality of captured images including a reference captured image (Refer to para [038]; “As illustrated in FIG. 2, when the image projected on the photographing surface 191 moves (represented as images 70, 71, 72 and 73 in FIG. 2) according to the movement of the stage 30, the following photograph result may be obtained from the TDI photographing unit 19.”) the plurality of captured images having been obtained with an imaging portion within a predetermined time while a surface of a subject moving relative to the illumination light is irradiated with a plurality of beams of illumination light traveling in different directions in at least one plane (Refer to para [034]; “The illumination light 41 may penetrate the diffraction grid 12 and the relay lens 13 and may be reflected by the beam splitter 14, and then may be irradiated onto the sample 50 through the objective lens 15. The illumination light 41 irradiated onto the sample 50 may have an intensity distribution corresponding to a grid pattern of the diffraction grid 12. The light 42 reflected from the sample 50 may pass through the objective lens 15, the beam splitter 14 and the relay lens 16 to be directed to the diffraction grid 17 installed at a sample conjugate surface in an imaging side (e.g., in the imaging optical system).”).
Ishikawa does not expressly disclose composing an image based on superimposing calculations.
Amanullah teaches “… apparatuses and methods for inspecting outer surfaces or sides of components, including component sidewalls, where sidewall inspection can occur in association with selectively directing illumination to some or all component sidewalls along optical travel paths such that the illumination is normally incident upon such sidewalls, and directing light reflected from the sidewalls such that an image capture device can capture sidewall images.”
More specifically, Amanullah teaches “… a multi-side inspection apparatus, which can capture images of a component bottom surface…” and a processing unit capable to … compose at least one subject surface image (Refer to para [141]; “a five side composite image can be generated to facilitate front surface and sidewall inspection. The five side composite image can be generated by a digital stitching operation, for instance, by way of digitally stitching together a central (e.g., bottom surface) image region corresponding to FIG. 7A with sidewall image regions corresponding to one or more multi-sidewall images, or sidewall image regions 510a-d corresponding to a wavelength segregated multi-sidewall image. A representative five side composite image is shown in FIG. 7D.”) by superimposing the shifted one or more captured images on the reference captured image (Refer to para [102]; “Such selective activation of sidewall illuminators 200a-d can involve the selective transmission of monochrome or essentially monochrome sidewall illumination or color sidewall illumination through specific sidewall beam splitters 210a-d and onto corresponding specific component sidewalls 26a-d. An individual having ordinary skill in the relevant art will understand that monochrome illumination can be captured by way of a monochrome image sensor or a color image sensor; and color illumination can be captured by way of a color image sensor such that different optical wavelengths corresponding to different color pixel data values or color pixel value ranges within image data corresponding to a captured image can be readily distinguished and/or separately processed to facilitate sidewall inspection operations.”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Ishikawa by adding a five side inspection apparatus as rejected above by the teachings of Amanullah.
The suggestion/motivation for combining the teachings of Ishikawa and Amanullah would have been for “… eliminating the extraneous illumination crossing from one sidewall beam splitter on one side of the component to the sidewall beam splitter on the opposite side of the component that contributes to crosstalk and which tends to lessen the visibility of details and clarity of ultrafine defects in the sidewall images of component captured.” (at para [018], Amanullah).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Ishikawa and Amanullah in order to obtain the specified claimed elements of Claim 1. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the Examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9, 10, 11, 12, 15 and 16 are allowed.
Claims 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14 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
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MIA M THOMAS whose telephone number is (571)270-1583. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 8:30am-4:30pm.
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MIA M. THOMAS
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2665
/MIA M THOMAS/Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2665
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