This Office Action is in response to the papers filed on September 18, 2024.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as claiming the same invention as that of claim 7 of parent United States Patent 12,125,900. This is a statutory double patenting rejection.
Claims 2-6 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 2-6, respectively, of Lin (parent United States Patent 12,125,900) together with Ohata (United States Patent 4,556,895).
The difference between this application’s dependent claims 2-6 and Lin’s dependent claims 2-6 is the former recite (via independent claim 1) “wherein the gate structure comprises a metal gate.”
Ohata teaches that a transistor gate is conventionally made of metal (column 3, lines 37-39).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to form Lin’s claim 1 gate structure of metal as taught by Ohata.
Registered practitioners can telephone the examiner at (571) 272-1843. Any voicemail message left for the examiner should include the registration number of the registered practitioner calling. The examiner’s supervisor is Wael Fahmy, whose telephone number is (571) 272-1705.
/MARK V PRENTY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2814
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