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 with traverse of 6-8, and 19 in the reply filed on 6/29/26 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that the inventions are not patentably distinct because they are drawn to the exact same physical combination of structural components. This is not found persuasive because the claims recite multiple different functionalities of the system. While it is true that many probe stations comprise a wafer site or chuck, a probe card assembly and a computer, these are generic structural components and no inventions which comprise those elements would be patentably distinct. However, the claims of the instant application do not just recite those elements; rather, the claims recite specific measurements which are different in each set of claims. For example, claim 1 recites measuring an air standard at a specific auxiliary site before making determination about a temperature at a different site and claim 6 recites a chuck moving device that moved when a determination about a temperature is made. Claims 12 and 15 also recite different method steps. If the claims are to be examined only on the structural limitations without taking the functional limitations to account, then many references/ patent documents could read on the Applicant’s argument that the claims are drawn to a probe station which “comprises the exact same hardware: a wafer site, an auxiliary site, a probe assembly, and a computer”. Because the Examiner has not taken the view presented by the Applicant, there would be a serious search burden to examine the multiple combinations of testing process.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 7/25/25 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being 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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 6 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hartmann, US 20070262782
Regarding claim 6, Hartmann discloses a wafer probe station, comprising: a wafer site for testing a semiconductor device (Fig. 1; position of wafer 15 being a wafer site); an auxiliary site for calibration, being set apart from the wafer site (Fig. 1; position of probe card 11 being an auxiliary site); a probe assembly, being configured to measure an air standard at the auxiliary site to provide an air standard dataset before measuring a calibration standard (Fig. 1, 5, 6; ¶[0050]; temperature of probe card determined by sensors 18); a computer electrically connected with the probe assembly (Fig. 1; tester 17), being configured to verify the air standard dataset with a predetermined signal range to determine whether adjusting a temperature of the probe assembly at the wafer site is necessary (¶[0050]; continuous measurement of temperature to determine whether probe card has reaches test temperature of wafer 15 is a determination that temperature adjustment is necessary or unnecessary); and a chuck moving device, being configured to move a wafer-site chuck to the probe assembly when the computer determines that adjusting the temperature of the probe assembly at the wafer site is necessary (¶[0051], [0055], [0059]; upon thermal equilibrium, chuck is moved to probe assembly; continuous matching of the position of the wafer).
Regarding claim 19, Hartmann teaches a semiconductor device tested by a wafer probe station of claim 6 (Fig. 1; wafer 15).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 8 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.
Regarding claim 7, prior art does not disclose or suggest: “wherein: the predetermined signal range comprises an upper limit and a lower limit; the upper limit is defined by a multiplication of an adaptive coefficient and an upper-limit dataset with maximum values of a plurality of air standard raw datasets at each frequency of a bandwidth, the plurality of air standard raw datasets comprising a wafer-site air standard raw dataset corresponding to a first temperature and a plurality of auxiliary-site air standard raw datasets corresponding to a plurality of different second temperatures respectively; and the lower limit is defined by a multiplication of the adaptive coefficient and a lower-limit dataset with minimum values of the plurality of air standard raw datasets at each frequency of the bandwidth” in combination with all the limitations of claim 7.
Regarding claim 8, prior art does not disclose or suggest: “wherein: the predetermined signal range comprises an upper limit and a lower limit; the upper limit is defined by a multiplication of an adaptive coefficient and an upper-limit dataset with maximum absolute values of a plurality of air standard differential datasets at each frequency of a bandwidth, each of the plurality of air standard differential datasets being generated based on a difference between a wafer-site air standard raw dataset corresponding to a first temperature and an auxiliary-site air standard raw dataset corresponding to a second temperature; and the lower limit is defined by a multiplication of the adaptive coefficient and a lower-limit dataset with negative maximum absolute values of the plurality of air standard differential datasets at each frequency of the bandwidth” in combination with all the limitations of claim 8.
Conclusion
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/FEBA POTHEN/Examiner, Art Unit 2858
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