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 § 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 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ghosh (U.S.Pat. 11,067,816) in view of Wieland et al (U.S 2006/0006349 A1).
With respect to claim 1, Ghosh discloses a photoetching machine (100; see figure 1) with comprising: a control device (102); a light focusing array and an electric device workpiece table/Piezo Stage; a photoetching light source (106); a de-excitation light source (see figure 10, steps 1004-1008); an electro-optical modulation array (108); and wherein the photoetching light source and the de-excitation light source respectively emit an exposure Gaussian beam and a de-excitation Gaussian beam with different wavelengths (see figure 5A) and a doughnut-shaped depletion beam having a zero-intensity center (figures 5A) , the control device is connected to the electro-optical modulation array (108) and the electric device workpiece table for controlling the electro-optical modulation array for modulating a laser emitted by the laser light source and controlling the electric drive workpiece table to move based on a design layout/pattern (118).
As to claim 5, Ghosh teaches focusing excitation/depletion beams (figure 1B)
As to claim 6, Ghosh teaches optical alignment and focusing along an optical axis (figure 1B).
As to claim 7, Ghosh explicitly discloses conversion of an excitation/depletion beam into a doughnut-shaped structured light beam via wavefront shaping (see figure 5A).
As to claim 8, Ghosh discloses positioning substrates during exposure (see figure 5B).
As to claim 9, Ghosh discloses precise spatial control of the exposure region.
Ghosh does not expressly disclose an optical fiber transmission arrays for delivering the light beams, a first stage light splitting array and a second stage light splitting array, as recited in the claims. However, these features are well known in the art. For example, Wieland discloses an optical fiber transmission device, including optical fibers/fiber arrays configured to transmit modulated light beams in a lithography system (see fiber-based optical transmission description) and Wieland further teaches splitting light into a plurality of beamlets/light channels that propagate in parallel optical paths (see Figures 1A- 1b and description of plurality of beamlets and optical couplers) and Wieland discloses a control system that controls optical switching/modulation based on pattern or layout information in a lithography system (see figure 13).
As to claim 2, the claim recites corresponding between light channels and modulation/control elements. Wieland teaches correspondence between individual beamlets/light channels and corresponding optical/modulation paths (see paragraph [0092]).
As to claim 3, Wieland discloses transmitting multiple beamlets via optical fibers/fiber arrays (see paragraph [0034]).
As to claim 4, Wieland teaches distributing light through multiple parallel channels to achieve controlled and uniform exposure (see paragraph [0092]).
In view of such teachings, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Wieland and Ghosh to obtain the claimed invention. It would have been obvious to a skilled artisan to incorporate the optical fiber transmission and multi-channel beam splitting architecture taught by Wieland into the photoetching machine of Ghosh in order to increase throughput and enable parallel exposure while retaining excitation/de-excitation beam shaping of Ghosh to improve resolution beyond the diffraction limit. Such a combination represents the predictable use of known lithography techniques to achieve improved performance.
Prior Art Made of Record
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Johnson (U.S.Pat. 9,188,874) discloses a photoetching machine and has been cited for technical background.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HUNG HENRY NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-2124. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7:00AM-4:30PM.
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HUNG HENRY NGUYEN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2882
Hvn
1/21/26
/HUNG V NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2882