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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 23 June 2026 has been entered. Claims 1-16 remain pending in the application. Applicant’s amendments to Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14 and 15 do not overcome the U.S.C. 103 rejections.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed 23 June 2026, with respect to the U.S.C. 103 rejections of claims 1-16 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection has newly cited references teaching the amended claim.
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.
Claims 1, 4-7, 9, and 12-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ledger (US 5291269 A) in view of Kim et al. (US 20040246493 A1), hereinafter Kim, further in view of Johnson (US4082464A).
As to claims 1 and 9, Ledger teaches a display inspection apparatus (fig. 1; apparatus (1)) of a wavelength scan type (claim 15; “plurality of narrow band filters for passing different wavelengths of visible light”), comprising:
a display sample having one or more layers (fig. 3; col. 5 ln. 27-31; Col. 8 ln. 22-29; “the material layers 40, 42” on silicon substrate 44);
a light irradiator configured to irradiate light to the display sample so that the light is incident onto a two-dimensional area of a surface of the display sample, and including a light source generating the light (claim 5; abstract; an extended light source, which includes a halogen lamp 10, for generating visible polychromatic light and means for directing said light onto the front surface of the layer of material);
a filter wheel having a plurality of filters, each filter converting reflected light reflected from the display sample into wavelength-reflected light with a corresponding wavelength (col. 6 ln. 28-33; “The series of filters 38 are placed around the periphery of a rotating filter wheel assembly 37, whereby a corresponding series of collimated monochromatic light beams 35 are produced. The wavelengths of these collimated monochromatic light beams 35 typically range from 550 nm to 950 nm”);
a driver configured to rotate the filter wheel (col. 6 ln. 28-33; the rotating filter wheel assembly 37 implicitly requires a drive mechanism to rotate);
a spectrometer configured to measure a spectrum for a plurality of wavelengths corresponding to a plurality of wavelength-reflected lights converted from the reflected light by passing through each of the plurality of filters (col. 8 ln. 1-15; col. 1 ln. 60-64; The spectral reflectance is computed, implying a spectroscopic instrument such as a spectrometer, like a “spectrograph”. Col. 7 ln. 1-7; fig. 1; “The wavelength dependent interference fringe pattern image that is displayed on the CCD camera detector array 31 is captured by the CCD camera 30. A reflectance map is generated by digitizing the CCD pixels 57 that correspond to each displayed wavelength dependent interference fringe pattern image through the use of a digitizing circuit 34”. Thus, the apparatus 1 acts as a spectrometer, measuring how light interacts with materials across specific wavelengths corresponding to each displayed wavelength dependent interference fringe pattern image, i.e. the wavelength-reflected lights which pass through each of the plurality of filters of the filter wheel).
and a controller configured to determine a thickness of the one or more layers based on the spectrum for the two-dimensional area over a plurality of wavelengths according to the change of the filter (col. 2 ln. 18-27; “…determining a thin film layer thickness of, for example, an entire thin film layer of a semiconductor wafer. Non-uniformities in the thickness of this thin film layer are obtained by measuring the reflectance characteristics of a surface of the wafer over its full aperture, and comparing this measured reflectance data to reference reflectance data by using numerical iteration or by using a calibration wafer having known thin film layer thicknesses”. Col. 8 ln. 22-29; New computed spectral reflectances are “generated for a closer set of t2 thicknesses”… or the index of refraction (n1) and the thickness (t1) of the SiO2 layer 42).
However, Ledger does not explicitly disclose the reflected light passes through each of the plurality of filters sequentially; and a controller configured to control the driver to rotate the filter wheel.
Kim, in the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, teaches a controller configured to control the driver to rotate the filter wheel (Kim [0069]; fig. 5; “The optical filter wheel 534 rotates with respect to the rotational axis 536, and this rotational motion is controlled by a functional block… within a control function such as the system control unit 552 or the information processing unit 550”. [0080]; “This rotational movement of the narrow band-pass optical filter wheel 634 is generally executed by a software, and this rotational movement in steps continues until the measurement of the intensity of reflectivity at the selected region on a sample thin film 520 are completed for all wavelengths”. Thus, the system control unit 552 or the information processing unit 550 is described by Kim as the controller).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Ledger to incorporate the teachings of Kim to include a controller configured to control the driver to rotate the filter wheel; for the advantage of preserving energy by rotating until the selected measurement is completed for all wavelengths (Kim [0080]).
Further, Kim teaches determining a thickness of the one or more layers based on the spectrum for the two-dimensional area over a plurality of wavelengths according to the change of the filter (claim 1; measuring thickness and refractive index of a single or multiple layers of thin films; an optical filter set for filtering said reflected light by different wavelength).
Still lacking the limitation such as the reflected light passes through each of the plurality of filters sequentially.
Johnson, in the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, teaches the reflected light passes through each of the plurality of filters sequentially (Johnson abstract; “In an optical analysis system, six interference filters are mounted on a wheel on a cylindrical locus. The wheel rotates to move the filters in sequence through a beam of light and to vary the angle of incidence of the light to the filters as the filters move through the beam of light so that the wavelength passed by the filters is swept through a range of values”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Ledger in view of Kim to incorporate the teachings of Johnson to include the reflected light passes through each of the plurality of filters sequentially; for the advantage of increased measurements for improved measurement accuracy (Johnson col. 1 ln. 39-41).
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Ledger Fig. 1 and 3
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Kim Fig. 5
As to claims 4 and 12, Ledger teaches the apparatus of claims 1 and 9, wherein the plurality of wavelengths corresponding to the plurality of wavelength-reflected lights has a number of 2 or more and 20 or less (Col. 7 ln. 57-63; “and calculating spectral reflectances for a set of wavelengths corresponding to the collimated monochromatic light produced by the narrow band filters 38 in the rotating filter wheel 37”; thus, there are two wavelengths used and the wavelengths correspond to the plurality of wavelength-reflected lights).
As to claims 5 and 13, Ledger teaches the apparatus of claims 1 and 9, wherein the one or more layers has a number of 1 or more and 10 or less (fig. 3; co. 5 ln. 37-39; Col. 8 ln. 22-29; “the material layers 40, 42” on silicon substrate 44).
As to claims 6 and 14, Ledger teaches the apparatus of claims 1 and 9, wherein the light irradiator includes: a light source configured to generate the light (Abstract; “extended light source includes a halogen lamp (10)”);
a beam splitter configured to reflect the light emitted from the light source toward the display sample; and a first lens configured to focus the light reflected from the beam splitter to be incident onto the surface of the display sample (col. 4 ln. 25-28; “thin plate beam splitter 18 reflects a portion 20 of the diffuse polychromatic light beam 17 toward a first collimator lens 22 that is positioned in front of the SOI wafer 24”).
As to claims 7 and 15, Ledger teaches the apparatus of claims 6 and 14, wherein the light irradiator further includes a second lens configured to focus each of the plurality of wavelength-reflected lights (col. 4 ln. 40-44; “The plate 26 and second collimator lens 28 form a spatial filter that transforms the transmitted converging diffuse polychromatic light beam 19 into a collimated spatially filtered polychromatic light beam 29”) to be incident onto the spectrometer (col. 7 ln. 1-4; fig. 1; “The wavelength dependent interference fringe pattern image that is displayed on the CCD camera detector array 31 is captured by the CCD camera 30”. Therefore, incident onto the implicit spectrometer, apparatus 1).
Claims 2, 3, 8, 10, 11 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ledger in view of Kim and Johnson, further in view of Jeon et al. (WO2022177049A1), hereinafter Jeon.
As to claims 2 and 10, Ledger teaches the apparatus of claims 1 and 9, wherein the controller is further configured to determine the thickness of each of the one or more layers (col. 7 ln. 12-40; the method for determining the thickness of the outer silicon layer 40 is performed by a computer 36).
Further, Kim teaches (Kim [0098]; “the general control of the afore-described apparatus for measuring thickness profile and refractive index distribution of thin films is executed by the system controller 552”).
However, Ledger in view of Kim and Johnson does not explicitly disclose wherein the controller uses artificial intelligence.
Jeon, in the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, teaches wherein the controller uses artificial intelligence (Jeon page 10 ln. 41-44; “As various embodiments, the processor 10 of the electronic device 100 applies an artificial intelligence technology using a rule-based or artificial intelligence algorithm to at least a portion of data analysis, processing, and result information generation for each of the operations performed. By doing so, an artificial intelligence system is built”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Ledger in view of Kim and Johnson to incorporate the teachings of Jeon to include wherein the controller uses artificial intelligence; for the advantage of automation and improved recognition rate (Jeon page 10 ln. 44-46).
As to claims 3 and 11, Ledger teaches the apparatus of claims 2 and 10.
However, Ledger in view of Kim and Johnson does not explicitly disclose wherein the artificial intelligence includes one or more of random forest, Gaussian process regression, and deep learning neural network.
Jeon, in the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, teaches wherein the artificial intelligence includes one or more of random forest, Gaussian process regression, and deep learning neural network (Jeon page 11 ln. 1-3; “Artificial intelligence technology is composed of elemental technologies that simulate functions such as cognition and judgment of the human brain using at least one of machine learning, a neural network, or a deep learning algorithm”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Ledger in view of Kim and Johnson to incorporate the teachings of Jeon to include wherein the artificial intelligence includes one or more of random forest, Gaussian process regression, and deep learning neural network; for the advantage of automation and improved recognition rate (Jeon page 10 ln. 44-46).
As to claims 8 and 16, Ledger teaches the apparatus of claims 1 and 9.
However, Ledger in view of Kim and Johnson does not explicitly disclose wherein the display sample includes at least one of an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) and a Quantum dot Light Emitting Diode (QLED).
Jeon, in the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, teaches wherein the display sample includes at least one of an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) and a Quantum dot Light Emitting Diode (QLED) (Jeon page 7 ln. 6-7; “The display 520 is implemented as a transparent display. A transparent display has high optical transmittance like transparent glass, and includes a transparent organic light emitting diode (OLED)”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Ledger in view of Kim and Johnson to incorporate the teachings of Jeon to include wherein the display sample includes at least one of an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) and a Quantum dot Light Emitting Diode (QLED); for the advantage of high optical transmittance (Jeon page 7 ln. 6-7).
Citation of pertinent prior art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Thielert et al. (US 20240312001 A1), hereinafter Thielert, teaches wherein the controller determines the thickness of each of the one or more layers using artificial intelligence (Thielert [0091]; “In the present case, a plurality of the data sets which have been determined on different substrates are also stored and linked in a data packet. The continuously growing data packet is used to train an artificial intelligence which creates the layer thickness variation profiles solely from the grayscale values g of grayscale images of further substrates. That is to say, after the artificial intelligence machine is trained, it can, on the basis of grayscale image data only, undertake a comprehensive characterization of a topography of the surface layer”).
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
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/KEMAYA NGUYEN/Examiner, Art Unit 2877
/TARIFUR R CHOWDHURY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2877
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