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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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, 4, 9-11, 13, 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Kiyokata (JP 2021019173A).
With respect to claims 1, 14, 18 Kiyotaka describes a composition comprising: water, organic solvent, pH of 11-14 or claimed the composition is alkaline, and a component A
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, wherein u is from 2-6, which provides two or more sulfur atoms; R3 represents a u-valent aliphatic group containing an aliphatic group or a heteroatom other than a sulfur atom, including nitrogen atom, oxygen atom, fluorine atom, chlorine atom, a bromine atom and an iodine atom (pages 1, 2, 5).
With respect to claims 3, 4, in an example, polyoxyalkylene triols is used to make component A (page 9), which provides the component A with at 3 hydroxy groups.
With respect to claims 9 and 10, the composition further includes tetramethylammonium hydroxide (page 7).
With respect to claim 11, the organic solvent includes alcohols such as methanol, ethanol, glycol ether (page 5), which contains a hydroxy or an amino group.
With respect to claim 13, it is an intended use of the composition. A recitation of the intended use of the claimed invention must result in a structural difference between the claimed invention and the prior art in order to patentably distinguish the claimed invention from the prior art. If the prior art structure is capable of performing the intended use, then it meets the claim. In this case, the composition contains the same components as that of the claimed invention; therefore, it can be used to treat an object that contains silicon and SiGe.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6, 9-17, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Murayama (WO 2017126554A1).
With respect to claims 1-3, 6, 17, 20 Murayama describes a composition comprising water, an organic solvent (page 4) and a pH of 7 or more, preferably 8 or more or claimed alkaline composition. Unlike claimed invention, Murayama doesn’t describe the composition contains a specific compound having two or more sulfur atoms and one or more heteroatoms other than a sulfur atom. However, he teaches the composition further includes a corrosion inhibitor, including cystine,
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, which provides claimed specific compound (page 8). It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to use cystine or claimed specific compound as a corrosion inhibitor in the composition with expected results.
With respect to claims 9, 10, and 19, the composition further includes a quaternary ammonium hydroxide (page 6).
With respect to claims 11 and 12, the organic solvent includes alcohol solvent such as glycol, alkane diol (page 4), which contains hydroxy groups and a content of organic solvent is 40-98 % by mass (page 5).
With respect to claims 13, 15, 16, Murayama teaches the composition further is applied for etching silicon (page 29), wherein the substrate further includes SiGe (page 30).
With respect to claim 14, the pH is preferably 13.4 (page 13).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 7, 8, 18, 19 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.
With respect to claims 5 and 19, neither Murayama nor Kiyokata teaches the compound has an aromatic hydrocarbon group substituted with a polar group containing a heteroatom other than a sulfur atom in combination with other limitations of claim 1.
With respect to claims 7 and 18, neither Murayama nor Kiyokata teaches the compound has a disulfide group and three or more hydroxy groups in combination with other limitations of claim 1.
With respect to claim 8 neither Murayama nor Kiyokata teaches the compound has a disulfide group and an aromatic hydrocarbon group substituted with a polar group containing a heteroatom other than a sulfur atom in combination with other limitations of claim 1.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUY VU NGUYEN DEO whose telephone number is (571)272-1462. The examiner can normally be reached 9-5 M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joshua Allen can be reached at 571-272-3176. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DUY VU N DEO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1713
6/17/2026
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