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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-5 were originally filed on 10/21/2024 and claimed priority on JP2022-069786, which was filed on 04/20/2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement filed on 10/21/2024 has been considered. An initialed copy of the Form 1449 is enclosed herewith.
Claim Objections
Claims 3-4 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 3 recites, on the last two lines, “the control device computes, based on at least three the post-transformed vectors”. Applicant should remove the term “the” so that the claim reads “the control device computes, based on at least three post-transformed vectors”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-2 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kodama (US 20170221748 A1) in view of Shindo (US 20220084862 A1) (Hereinafter referred to as Kodama and Shindo respectively)
Regarding Claims 1 and 5, Kodama teaches a control device that controls a substrate transfer robot (See at least Kodama Paragraphs 0028-0029, 0048, and Figure 1, the controller is the control device that controls the substrate transfer robot/conveyance arm), a control method that controls a substrate transfer robot (See at least Kodama Paragraphs 0007 and 0028-0029, the conveyance arm is the substrate transfer robot), the substrate transfer robot comprising:
a hand capable of holding a substrate (See at least Kodama Paragraph 0032 and Figure 2A, the fork/hand holds the wafer/substrate);
a joint with an axis being oriented in a vertical direction (See at least Kodama Paragraph 0032 and Figure 2A, the robot includes two joints with each axis being orientated vertically to allow the robot to pivot horizontally);
…the hand transfers the substrate to make the substrate pass through a first sensor and a second sensor (See at least Kodama Paragraph 0035 and Figures 3a-3d), and an orientation of the hand in a plan view when the substrate passes the first sensor and the second sensor is inclined from a direction perpendicular to a straight line connecting the first sensor and the second sensor (See at least Kodama Paragraph 0035 and Figures 3a-3d, the orientation of the hand/fork is inclined from the direction perpendicular to the straight line connecting sensor 19a to 19b), and
the control device generates positional misalignment information indicating positional misalignment of the substrate with respect to the hand (See at least Kodama Paragraphs 0003, 0005, 0030, 0043, and Figure 7, the positional displacement/misalignment of the wafer/substrate with respect to the center of the fork/hand is determined), based on positions of the hand on at least three times that any of a plurality of sensors, including the first sensor and the second sensor, detected an outer edge of the substrate (See at least Kodama Paragraphs 0003, 0005, 0030, 0035-0036, 0043, and Figures 3a-3d and 7, the four positions when the edge of the substrate was detected by the sensors are used to determine the misalignment/displacement).
Kodama fails to explicitly disclose a joint motor that drives the joint wherein the control device controls the joint motor.
However, Shindo teaches a joint motor that drives the joint (See at least Shindo Paragraph 0034 and Figure 1, the axis motors are interpreted as joint motors) wherein the control device controls the joint motor (See at least Shindo Paragraph 0036).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the teachings disclosed in Kodama with Shindo to have a joint motor that drives the joint and a control device that controls the joint motor. Joint motors are routine and conventional in the art. By having a joint motor that is controlled by the control device, as taught by Shindo, the operation of the robot can be controlled by driving the joint motors in the joints of the robot (See at least Shindo Paragraphs 0034 and 0036).
Regarding Claim 2, modified Kodama teaches wherein between at least two times when either the first sensor or the second sensor detected the outer edge of the substrate, the orientation of the hand upon detection differs (See at least Kodama Paragraphs 0007, 0033-0036, and Figures 2a-3d, the fork/hand rotates during conveyance).
Claims 3-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kodama in view of Shindo, and in further view of Hofmeister et al (US 9196518 B1) and Mooring et al (US 20200091085 A1) (Hereinafter referred to as Hofmeister and Mooring respectively)
Regarding Claim 3, modified Kodama fails to disclose wherein the control device computes the position and the orientation of the hand at respective times when any of the first sensor and the second sensor detected the outer edge of the substrate,
the control device computes, based on the position of the hand, a vector indicating a relationship between a position of a detection sensor, being the sensor that detected the outer edge of the substrate among the first sensor and the second sensor, and the position of the hand.
However, Hofmeister teaches the control device computes the position and the orientation of the hand at respective times when any of the first sensor and the second sensor detected the outer edge of the substrate (See at least Hofmeister Column 8 lines 24-32, and Figure 13, the position and orientation of the end effector/hand at each sensor event is collected),
the control device computes, based on the position of the hand, a vector indicating a relationship between a position of a detection sensor, being the sensor that detected the outer edge of the substrate among the first sensor and the second sensor, and the position of the hand (See at least Hofmeister Column 8 lines 43-50, and Figure 13, a vector indicating the relationship between the position of the detection sensor and the position of the hand/end effector is calculated).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the teachings disclosed in modified Kodama with Hofmeister to compute, based on the position of the hand, a vector indicating a relationship between a position of a detection sensor and the position of the hand. This modification, as taught by Hofmeister, would allow the system to utilize the vector to adjust a placement location and achieve a target wafer location (See at least Hofmeister Column 8 line 43-Column 9 line 36 and Figures 13-15), which would improve the accuracy of the system.
Modified Kodama fails to disclose the control device computes, based on the orientation of the hand, a post- transformed vector, which is a vector transformed into a tool coordinate system being a coordinate system based on the hand, and
the control device computes, based on at least three the post-transformed vectors, the positional misalignment of the substrate in the tool coordinate system.
However, Mooring teaches the control device computes, based on the orientation of the hand, a post- transformed vector, which is a vector transformed into a tool coordinate system being a coordinate system based on the hand (See at least Mooring Paragraph 0036 and Figure 2, coordinate transformation is performed to calculate vectors in a blade/tool coordinate system; the angles of the vectors from the center of the blade coordinate system are based on the orientation of the hand), and
the control device computes, based on at least three the post-transformed vectors, the positional misalignment of the substrate in the tool coordinate system (See at least Mooring Paragraph 0036 and Figure 2, the wafer offset/positional misalignment in the blade/tool coordinate system is determined using the set of transformed vectors).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the teachings disclosed in modified Kodama with Mooring to compute the positional misalignment of the substrate in the tool coordinate system based on at least three post-transformed vectors. This modification, as taught by Mooring, would allow the system to correct the positional misalignment when the center of the substrate is offset from the center of the tool coordinate system and enable correct placement of the substrate (See at least Mooring Paragraphs 0003, 0022, and 0036), which would increase the accuracy of the system.
Regarding Claim 4, modified Kodama teaches the control device modifies, based on the positional misalignment information acquired while transferring the substrate, a target position of the hand when placing the substrate at a transfer destination (See at least Kodama Paragraphs 0003 and 0030, the conveyance trajectory is adjusted/modified based on the positional displacement/misalignment to place the wafer at the desired position).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kondoh (US 20100172720 A1) teaches determining a positional deviation for a robot transferring a substrate using edge detection
Johanson et al (US 6405101 B1) teaches a wafer centering system by detecting the edge of the wafer
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/ESVINDER SINGH/Examiner, Art Unit 3657