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 .
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 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.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-14 in the reply filed on August 12, 2026 is acknowledged. Claim 15 is withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1-3, 7-9 and 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Rueger et al. (US20080038933).
Regarding claim 1, Rueger discloses a method of material-selective etching and growth (abstract), comprising: providing an electron beam (EB) source (paragraph 0015); providing a remote plasma (RP) source (paragraph 0014); applying the EB source and the RP source simultaneously to a device comprising a first material of a first selected area and a second material of a second selected area, wherein the simultaneous application of electron beam irradiation from the EB source and the chemical fluxes from the RP source performs etching of the first material and growth of a third material on the second material by chemical conversion (paragraph 0021 and Fig. 1).
Regarding claim 2, Rueger discloses wherein the EB source is applied at a material penetration depth to cause the growth of the third material (claim 1).
Regarding claim 3, Rueger discloses wherein the EB source and the RP source are applied for a predefined time period (the time the plasma species exposed to the electron beam reads on a predefined time period, paragraph 0015).
Regarding claim 7, Rueger discloses discontinuing the application of the EB source (at the end of step 130, paragraphs 0019 and 0021).
Regarding claims 8-9, the limitations recited in the “wherein” clauses in the method claims simply express the intended results of the recited process; therefore, it is not accorded patentability weight. See MPEP 2111.04.
Regarding claim 12, Rueger discloses wherein the device comprising the first material of the first selected area and the second material of the second selected area is not treated prior to application of the EB source and the RP source simultaneously (paragraphs 0013 and 0014).
Regarding claim 13, Rueger discloses wherein the first selected area and the second selected area are not contiguous to one another (the substrate is used for fabricating integrated circuits, paragraph 0012, indicating that there are multiple localized regions shown in Fig. 2, see annotated figure below based on Fig. 2).
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Regarding claim 14, Rueger discloses wherein the first selected area and the second selected area are contiguous to one another (see annotated figure below based on Fig. 2).
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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 of this title, 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Rueger et al. (US20080038933) as applied to claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 4, Rueger is silent about wherein the predefined time period is 400 seconds. However, a reaction time is determined routinely by one of ordinary skilled artisan based on required etching and deposition amount. Where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable range by routine experimentation and there is no evidence of the criticality of the claimed range. See MPEP 2144.05II.
Claims 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rueger et al. (US20080038933) as applied to claim 1 above, in view of Citla et al. (US20220351969).
Regarding claims 10-11, Tabata is silent about wherein the RP source is an electron cyclotron wave resonance (EWCR) source, a remote inductively coupled or microwave plasma source. However, Citla teaches that a remote plasma source may be an electron cyclotron resonance source, an inductively coupled plasma source, or microwave plasma source (paragraph 0023). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to use a known remote plasma source as taught by Citla, in the method of Rueger, with a reasonable expectation of success. It has been held that combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results is obvious. See MPEP 2143 I.(A).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-6 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 5, the cited prior art of record, taken either alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious a method wherein the first material is ruthenium, in the context of the instant claim.
Regarding claim 6, the cited prior art of record, taken either alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious a method wherein the second material is tantalum, in the context of the instant claim.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Oehrlein (US20230059730) discloses a method for treating a surface of a substrate, comprising: placing the substrate into a low-pressure chamber to which an electron source is connected; contacting the surface of the substrate with reactive particle fluxes produced by a remote plasma source connected to the low-pressure chamber, wherein the remote plasma source is fed with one or more chemical precursors for surface chemical functionalization of the surface of the substrate; and electron irradiating the surface of the substrate with electrons via the electron source at a specified energy level to induce a surface chemical process on the surface of the substrate.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JIONG-PING LU whose telephone number is (571) 270-1135. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F: 9:00am – 5:00pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joshua L Allen, can be reached at telephone number (571)270-3176. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JIONG-PING LU/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1713
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