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 .
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because the Summary of the Invention repeats the claim language (paragraph 14).
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 6-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
It is unclear if the last two wherein clauses are being claimed or are descriptive. Different readers would draw different conclusions/interpretations, thereby making the claim indefinite.
Support for them being claimed can be found in their inclusion in the claim. Support for them being descriptive (not claimed) can be found in the following.
The last two wherein clauses recite that a gas passage “is provided” between two other parts and that a dielectric material “is placed” in the space. This passive language is descriptive of something that happens outside the scope of the claim.
The Applicant has established how they intend to claim distinct structural limitations (the phrase “a [structure]” at the beginning of a new paragraph). The space and dielectric material are not similarly introduced. They are only mentioned in a wherein clause (and with passive language) that gives them different meaning.
Claims 7-12 are similarly rejected as they depend from, and inherit the deficiencies of, claim 6.
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, 4-6 and 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sasaki (US 2012/0068968). The Japanese publication of Sasaki was applied as an X-reference against the claims in the PCT application. This application does not contain any arguments or comments to indicate why Sasaki would not be an anticipatory reference against the pending claims.
With respect to claim 1, Sasaki discloses a member for a semiconductor manufacturing equipment (fig 4; par 33-52, 98-109), comprising:
a dielectric substrate (11; par 35) having an upper surface (11a) on which a wafer is to be placed, and a lower surface (11b) opposite to the upper surface,
a plug placement hole (90) that vertically penetrates the dielectric substrate,
a plug (91, 93 – see additional citations below) embedded in the plug placement hole and having an upper surface and a lower surface,
a conductive base plate (50; par 39-40 – it is made of aluminum and is “conductive”) bonded to the lower surface of the dielectric substrate via a bonding layer (60), and
a gas supply path (any one or more of 53b, 53c, 53d) that passes through the base plate and the bonding layer to supply gas to the plug;
wherein the plug is composed of a dielectric material and comprises:
a dense portion (93),
a gas passage (91) that has a relative permittivity lower than that of the dense portion and that penetrates the plug to allow the gas to flow, and
a voltage drop promoting portion (93c; par 100) that has a lower relative permittivity than that of the dense portion and that does not constitute a passage for the gas to flow.
Sasaki discloses the plug includes three parts (91, 93, 93c). 91 corresponds to the “gas passage” as it the most porous of the three. 93 and 93 are dense (preventing gas flow) and Sasaki discloses that “it is favorable to set the dielectric constant of at least one of the first dense portion 93 or the central dense portion 93c to be less than the dielectric constant of the first porous portion” (par 100). The dielectric constant directly affects the relative permittivity. Thus, the dielectric constants of 93 and 93c are set to satisfy the requirement that 93c has lower relative permittivity than 93.
With respect to claim 4, Sasaki discloses at least a portion of the gas passage is porous (91 is porous; par 100).
With respect to claim 5, Sasaki discloses the voltage drop promoting portion is porous (par 100 – 93c is only “more dense” than 91, it is not completely solid – it has some holes/pores).
With respect to claims 6 and 10-11, Sasaki discloses the apparatus, as discussed above in the art rejection of claims 1, 4 and 4, respectively, and further discloses:
wherein a gas introduction space (53c) communicating with the gas supply path and the gas passage is provided between the lower surface of the plug (bottom of 93c) and the bonding layer (60); and
wherein a dielectric material (3a; par 66) that allows a flow of the gas is placed in the gas introduction space.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 2 and 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sasaki.
With respect to claims 2 and 8, Sasaki discloses the apparatus of claims 1 and 6, but does not expressly disclose relative permittivity values. At the time of the earliest priority date of the application, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to configure/modify Sasaki such that 93 has a relative permittivity greater than 7 and 93c has a relative permittivity of 7 or less.
The level of permittivity is a result effective variable. MPEP §2144.05. Sasaki discloses that 93 and 93c can have a range of dielectric constants to suppress arcing. Different dielectric constants would result in different relative permittivities. Thus, the skilled artisan, knowing that items 93 and 93c are dense (to prevent the passage of gas) and structured to have unequal dielectric constants (to suppresses arcing), would have been motivated to configure the permittivity boundary between the two layers to be 7.
With respect to claim 7, Sasaki discloses the apparatus of claim 6, but does not expressly disclose the relative permittivity of the dielectric material that allows the flow of the gas. The permittivity is a result effective variable. Id. The skilled artisan would have understood the relationship between the Sasaki item 3a permittivity and the operational functionality of gas flow. Setting the permittivity to be between 1-11 would have been an obvious design choice.
With respect to claim 9, Sasaki discloses the apparatus of claim 6, but does not expressly disclose the distance of the claims vertical direction. At the time of the earliest priority date of the application, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to scale the Sasaki device (making it physically bigger or smaller) such that its distance from the gas passage inlet through the gas introduction space to the bonding layer upper surface would have been 500 µm or less. The changing in physical size of a device is an obvious modification. MPEP §2144.04(IV)(A).
Claims 3 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sasaki in view of Inoue (US 2023/0298861).
Sasaki discloses the plug hole and plug are cylindrical and does not expressly disclose a truncated conical shape. Inoue discloses a plug hole and plug inserted into a substrate, wherein the plug hole and plug can be a variety of shapes, including a truncated cone (fig 10A, 10C; par 53) with an upper surface area being larger than the lower surface area.
Sasaki and Inoue are analogous to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of endeavor, namely electrostatic chucks and plugs for gas passage. At the time of the earliest priority date of the application, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to configure the Sasaki plug (and hole) to be a truncated conical shape, as taught by Inoue. The motivation for doing so would have been the obviousness of selecting from known shapes, each with a reasonable expectation of success. Inoue does not detail any hardships or unexpected difficulties in using one shape versus another. Thus, using any of the disclosed shapes would have been within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art.
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/ADI AMRANY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2836