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 .
a. In regards to the 35 U.S.C 112 rejection, Applicant submits without acquiescing to the propriety of the rejection, and solely to advance prosecution, Applicant has amended claims 16 & 30 to address the issue raised by the Office.
a. (Examiner’s response) Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 16 & 30 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.C.S 112 rejection of 16 & 30 has been withdrawn.
b. In regards to the 35 U.S.C 102 rejection, Applicant submits contrary to the claimed arrangement, the alleged beam portions 105A and 105B originate from a common optical source, not separate point sources formed after the beam is split by the beamsplitting arrangement.
b. (Examiner’s response) Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 16 & 30 under Mortensen US 20230304859 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of DU CN 111780688 in view of paper of Qican Zhang, “A carrier removal method in Fourier transform profilometry with Zernike polynomials”, 26 June 2012. Further explanation is shown in the action below.
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.
Claim(s) 16, 17, 19, & 28-30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DU CN 111780688 in view of paper of Qican Zhang, “A carrier removal method in Fourier transform profilometry with Zernike polynomials”, 26 June 2012 hereafter Zhang.
With respect to claim 16, Du teaches a Fourier-transform spectrometer comprising:
a beamsplitting arrangement (fig 2, 6) operable to define a first radiation source and a second radiation source from configured to split radiation from a common radiation source into a first diverging beam emitting from a first point source and a second diverging beam emitting from a second point source “young double-hole interference” (abstract, lines 10-12);
at least one detector (fig 2, 9) operable configured to detect interferogram data as a function of detection position “g(x,y)” (pg. 7, ¶ 3) in at least a first detection plane direction “x direction” (pg. 7, ¶ 8) of a detection plane, the interferogram data resulting from interference of the first diverging beam emitted from the first radiation source and the second diverging beam emitted from the second radiation source; and
a processor (fig 5, 10) operable configured to perform a Fourier transform “performing Fourier transform” on the distorted interference” (pg. 5, ¶ 4) to obtain spectral characteristic “data surface three-dimensional profile phase information” (pg. 8, ¶ 2, lines 10-12) relating to the common radiation source.
Du does not specially teach a processor configured to perform a linearization correction to the interferogram data to obtain linearized interferogram data.
Zhang, in the same field of endeavor as Du of Fourier Transform profilometry without distortion interference (claims 9, lines 15-20), teaches a processor configured to remove a non-linearity i.e. carrier (fig 4a) in which an inverse Fourier transform (fig 4d) is applied subsequently after to obtain a 3D image. (pg. 255,¶ 1) (pg. 259, ¶ 3, lines 1-3). At the time prior to effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Zhang’s processor with Du’s detector to provide smooth 3D images without unwanted distortion caused by the object being imaged.
With respect to claim 17 according to claim 16, the combination teaches the Fourier-transform spectrometer comprising no intervening optics between the beamsplitting arrangement (fig 1, 6 Du) and the at least one detector (fig 1, 9 Du) such that the at least one detector is arranged to directly detect the first diverging beam and the second diverging beam.
With respect to claim 19 according to claim 16, the combination teaches the Fourier-transform spectrometer wherein the beamsplitting arrangement is configured such that divergence of the first diverging beam and the second diverging beam is larger in the first detection plane direction with respect to a second detection plane direction of the detection plane (fig 1, Du).
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With respect to claim 28, Du teaches a metrology device comprising: the Fourier-transform spectrometer operable configured to measure spectral characteristic data of measurement radiation used by the metrology device “three-dimensional profile” in performing measurements (pg. 8, ¶ 2, lines 18-20).
Du does not teach a processor configured to perform a linearization correction to the interferogram data to obtain linearized interferogram data.
Zhang, in the same field of endeavor as Du of Fourier Transform profilometry without distortion interference (claims 9, lines 15-20), teaches a processor configured to remove a non-linearity i.e. carrier (fig 4a) in which an inverse Fourier transform (fig 4d) is applied subsequently after to obtain a 3D image. (pg. 255,¶ 1) (pg. 259, ¶ 3, lines 1-3). At the time prior to effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Zhang’s processor with Du’s detector to provide smooth 3D images without unwanted distortion caused by the object being imaged.
With respect to claim 29, Du teaches a lithographic apparatus comprising:
a metrology device “three-dimensional profile” (pg. 8, ¶ 2, lines 18-20) comprising the Fourier-transform spectrometer operable configured to measure spectral characteristic data of measurement radiation used by the
metrology device in performing measurements.
Du does not teach a processor configured to perform a linearization correction to the interferogram data to obtain linearized interferogram data.
Zhang, in the same field of endeavor as Du of Fourier Transform profilometry without distortion interference (claims 9, lines 15-20), teaches a processor configured to remove a non-linearity i.e. carrier (fig 4a) in which an inverse Fourier transform (fig 4d) is applied subsequently after to obtain a 3D image. (pg. 255,¶ 1) (pg. 259, ¶ 3, lines 1-3). At the time prior to effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Zhang’s processor with Du’s detector to provide smooth 3D images without unwanted distortion caused by the object being imaged.
With respect to claim 30 Du teaches a method comprising:
detecting interferogram data as a function of detection position “g(x,y)” (pg. 7, ¶ 3) in at least a first detection
plane direction of a detection plane “x direction” (pg. 7, ¶ 8), the interferogram data resulting from interference of a first diverging beam emitted from a first radiation point source and a second diverging beam emitted from a second radiation point source, the first diverging beam radiation source and the second diverging beam radiation source having been sourced from formed by splitting radiation from a common radiation source “young double-hole interference” (abstract, lines 10-12);
Fourier transforming “performing Fourier transform on the distorted interference” (pg. 5, ¶ 4) interferogram data to obtain spectral characteristic data relating to the common radiation source.
Du does not specifically teach a processor configured to perform a linearization correction to the interferogram data to obtain linearized interferogram data.
Zhang, in the same field of endeavor of as Du of Fourier Transform profilometry without distortion interference (claims 9, lines 15-20), teaches a processor configured to remove a non-linearity i.e. carrier (fig 4a) in which an inverse Fourier transform (fig 4d) is applied subsequently after to obtain a 3D image. (pg. 255,¶ 1) (pg. 259, ¶ 3, lines 1-3). At the time prior to effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Zhang’s processor with Du’s detector to provide smooth 3D images without unwanted distortion caused by the object being imaged.
Claim(s) 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DU CN 111780688 in view of paper of Qican Zhang, “A carrier removal method in Fourier transform profilometry with Zernike polynomials”, 26 June 2012 hereafter Zhang in further view of paper of E. TALAMAS SIMOLA, “Voltage-tunable dual-band Ge/Si photodetector operating in VIS and NIR spectral range”, 2019 hereafter Simola.
With respect to claim 22 according to claim 16, the combination does not teach the at least one detector comprises two or more detectors, each for a respective different wavelength range.
Simola, in the field of endeavor of photodetectors, teaches a detector comprising two or more detectors, wherein each detector has different wavelength ranges (fig 1, a-c). At the time prior to the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Simola detector with the combination’s radiation source as a design choice to observe multiple types of samples that may be sensitive to different wavelengths.
Claim(s) 27 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DU CN 111780688 in view of paper of Qican Zhang, “A carrier removal method in Fourier transform profilometry with Zernike polynomials”, 26 June 2012 hereafter Zhang in further view of ZHANG Xiao-xuan, “Fourier transform profilometry based on mean envelope extraction”, 2017 hereafter Zhang (2).
With respect to claim 27 according to claim 16, the combination does not teach the processor is further operable configured to perform the linearization correction by interpolation of the interferogram data as detected.
Zhang (2), in the same field of endeavor as Du of projection of Fourier Transform profilometry without background light (claims 9, lines 15-20 Du), teaches a processor (fig 8b) configured to linearly interpolate interference data (Equation 1) by removing background intensity “a (x,y)” (pg. 3, ¶ 2). Zhang (2) further teaches a Fourier transform is applied to linearized interferogram (pg. 3, ¶ 5). At the time prior to the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to combine Zhang (2)’s processor with the combination’s detector to achieve 3D shape data of objects having large slopes from one-shot acquisition by using color fringe projection technique and will have wide applications in the field of real-time measurement (pg. 9, ¶ 1, lines 6-7).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 18, 20, 21, & 23-26 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims or to include the limitation(s) and any intervening claims into the base claim and overcome the U.S.C 112 rejection. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
As to claim 18, the prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious “processor is operable configured to perform the linearization correction by transforming the interferogram data to the linearized interferogram data such that the linearized interferogram data has a linearized relationship with an optical path difference between the first diverging beam and the second diverging beam”, in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 18.
As to claim 20, the prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious “wherein the
beamsplitting arrangement is configured such that divergence of the first diverging beam and the second diverging beam is minimized in the second detection plane direction”, in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 20.
As to claim 23, the prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious “distance between the first radiation source and the second radiation source in a plane parallel to the detection plane is
between about 1 mm and about 10 mm”, in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 23.
As to claim 24, the prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious “wherein a distance between the first radiation source and the second radiation source in a direction parallel to the detection
plane is between about 2mm and about 6mm”, in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 24.
As to claim 25, the prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious “a
distance between the beamsplitting arrangement and the at least one detector in a direction normal to the detection plane is between about 100mm and about 400mm”, in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 25.
As to claim 26, the prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious “wherein the
beamsplitting arrangement comprises a waveguide beamsplitter”, in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 26.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAURICE C SMITH whose telephone number is (571)272-2526. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-5pm EST.
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/MAURICE C SMITH/Examiner, Art Unit 2877
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