DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of the Application
Claim(s) 1-7 is/are pending.
Claim(s) 1-2, 5-7 is/are rejected.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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:
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Claim(s) 1, 5-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kadoi et al. US 20200221566 A1) [hereinafter Kadoi] in view of Onishi (WO2010001953A1).
Regarding claim 1, Kadoi teaches a charged particle gun for emitting a charged particle beam, comprising:
an emitter (see fig 5: 101);
an extraction electrode (see 102) for extracting the charged particle beam (see 115) from the emitter;
a capacitor (see 501) having one end (bottom side of 501, via 109) connected to the extraction electrode (102);
a first power supply (see e.g. 104) for supplying a first voltage (see Vo’) to the one end of the capacitor (bottom side of 501)
a second power supply (e.g. 103) providing an output of a second voltage (see V1 or Vo-V1 at top side of 501); and
a switch circuit (see 105) that switches between whether the second voltage or a reference potential (see Vo) is supplied to the other end of the capacitor (top side),
Kadoi may fail to explicitly disclose supplying the first voltage to the one end of the capacitor via a resistor.
However, the use of resistors to enable use of middle stage terminals (see 111) in power supplies was well known in the art at the time the application was effectively filed. For example, Onishi teaches a known effective system to enable a smooth voltage distribution for acceleration stages in an electron source (see Onishi, abstract) comprising the use of a power supply (see fig 2, including 41, 43, 44-47) comprising middle stage terminals to derive lower potential voltages (see at e.g. 19a-c, etc). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was effectively filed to combine the teachings of Onishi in the system of the prior art because a skilled artisan would have been motivated to look for ways to enable the intended operation of providing use of the middle stage terminal interface of Kadoi, including enable the known effective use of resistor ladders, which also enables operation of smooth voltage distributions, in the manner taught by Onishi. Therefore, the combined teaching of Kadoi and Onishi teaches supplying the first voltage to the one end of the capacitor (see bottom side of Kadoi, fig 4: 501) via a resistor (inside of 104, see generally Onishi, fig 2: e.g. 44, 45, etc).
The combined teaching of Kadoi and Onishi may fail to explicitly disclose switching between whether the second voltage or a reference potential is supplied based on a reference pulsed signal.
However, in a different embodiment, Kadoi teaches the specific implementation of the switching is based, in part, on a reference pulsed signal (e.g. clock signal, see fig 3, [0042]). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was effectively filed to combine the use of the known effective switching based on a reference pulsed signal in the alternate embodiment of Kadoi, to try to enable the intended operation of providing effective abnormality detection and switching. Alternately, it is noted that the use of clock signals (polling) for monitoring for fault conditions was well known in the art at the time the application was effectively filed. Although the cited reference(s) is/are different from the invention claimed, the language of Applicant's claims are sufficiently broad to reasonably read on the cited reference(s). It is also alternately/additionally noted that a recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus if the prior art apparatus teaches all the structural limitations of the claim. See Ex parte Masham, 2 USPQ2d 1647, and MPEP 2114.
Regarding claim 5, the combined teaching of Kadoi and Onishi teaches said switch circuit switches between whether said second voltage or said reference potential is supplied to the other end of said capacitor based on said reference pulsed signal (see discussion of e.g. clock signals in claim 1, above). The combined teaching may fail to explicitly disclose whereby the emission current of the charged particle beam emitted from the emitter is varied in a pulsed manner. However, it is noted that the operation or characteristics of the upstream power source, including operating with insufficient current which would naturally result in a generally repeatedly pulsed (note that the frequency of pulsing is not claimed) operation of the beam (see generally Kadoi, [0052]; see generally also the circuit of fig 5), describes an intended use of the apparatus, under the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims. It is noted that a recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus if the prior art apparatus teaches all the structural limitations of the claim. See Ex parte Masham, 2 USPQ2d 1647, and MPEP 2114. Alternately, it is noted that under the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims, the variation of the emission current (turning the current on or off, see Kadoi, [0052]) can be described as a pulsed variation (from on to off or off to on).
Regarding claim 6, the combined teaching of Kadoi and Onishi teaches said first voltage is set lower than a voltage necessary to emit the charged particle beam from said emitter (see Kadoi, fig 5, Vo’ is lower than the combined Vo+V1+additional potential required to energize the anode or cathode). It is noted that if a lower voltage were applied to the emitter, a skilled artisan would be motivated to ensure abnormality detection is triggered, to enable the intended operation of the system when it enters a fault state. It is also noted it has held that discovering an optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. See In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233.
Regarding claim 7, the combined teaching of Kadoi and Onishi teaches a charged particle beam system comprising a charged particle gun as set forth in claim 1 (see Kadoi, fig 5).
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kadoi and Onishi, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Nakasuji et al. (US 20080173815 A1) [hereinafter Nakasuji].
Regarding claim 2, the combined teaching of Kadoi and Onishi fails to explicitly disclose a beam blanker for blanking said charged particle beam in response to a blanking signal synchronized to said reference pulsed signal. However, the use of sending blanking signals against a master clock (thus synchronized with said master clock) was well known as a routine skill in the art. Alternately, Nakasuji teaches a fault recovery system comprising, in response to fault detection, stopping emission of the electron beam while also blanking the beam, in order to avoid contaminating or damaging a sample with a malfunctioning beam (see Nakasuji, [0547-548]). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was effectively filed to combine the teachings of Nakasuji in the system of the combined prior art, because a skilled artisan would have been motivated to look for ways to only expose the sample with well-understood functioning beams, and protect the sample from malfunctioning beams via blanking, in the manner taught by Nakasuji. Therefore, the combined teaching of Kadoi, Onishi, and Nakasuji teaches a beam blanker for blanking said charged particle beam in response to a blanking signal synchronized to said reference pulsed signal (triggered by all fault conditions, including Kadoi, e.g. [0052]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4 are objected to due to a dependency on a rejected claim. However, since the prior art does not suggest or disclose all the claimed limitations of the instant claims, these would have been allowable if rewritten in independent form including all limitations of the base claim(s).
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claims 3-4, the prior art of record, alone or in combination, and to the examiner’s knowledge does not teach, disclose, suggest, or render obvious, at least to the skilled artisan, the instant invention regarding the combination of structure and functionality as described in the claims, in particular the circuitry in combination with the elapse of given time between the switching from the second to first logic level, and then maintaining the fourth logic level for a certain period of time.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to James Choi whose telephone number is (571) 272 – 2689. The examiner can normally be reached on 9:30 am – 6:00 pm M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Georgia Epps can be reached on (571) 272 – 2328. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273 – 8300.
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/JAMES CHOI/Examiner, Art Unit 2878
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