DETAILED ACTION
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.
Claims 1-5 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kudo et al. (JP 2007-096032) in view of Hirotsuru et al. (US 20090092793).
Kudo discloses an insulating substrate. Concerning claim 1, Kudo discloses the substrate (FIG. 1) that comprises a base plate that is a SiC/Al composite material (element 1), an insulating layer (element 2), and a wiring element comprising conductive layers (element 3) as a base for an electronic component (para. 0011-0026). However, Kudo is silent to base plate being porous and formed from the claimed particles. Regarding claim 10, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have one of the conductive layers in the wiring element be a redistribution layer, based upon the desired structure and function of the electronic component. However, Kudo is silent to base plate being porous and formed from the claimed particles.
Hirotsuru discloses an aluminum/silicon carbide composite material for a base plate, wherein the aluminum/silicon carbide composite base plate comprises a silicon carbide porous body that is impregnated with aluminum within the pores and has an aluminum layer disposed on the surface (abstract; para. 0043-0074). With respect to claims 2, 4, and 5, the mixed powder particles are silicon carbide particles having a particle size of at most 15 microns and silicon carbide particles having a particle size of at least 40 microns, wherein as shown in the examples, has a mixed powder particle size of 100 microns, 60 microns, and 10 microns, resulting in large, medium, and small particles blended together to form the porous structure (para. 0044-0045 and 0065). While it is noted that Hirotsuru does not explicitly recite the claimed range of 0.1 to 5 microns and 2 to 10 microns, Hirotsuru does disclose a range of up to 15 microns for the fine particles, wherein the particle size and content of the coarse and fine particles affect the thermal conductivity and the strength of the resulting composite and the coarse particle are found at a greater particle content than the smaller particles in the examples. As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art have the claimed ratios and particle size for the fine particles, in order to achieve the desired thermal conductivity and strength.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-9 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 prior art is silent to the claimed each and every element in the objected claims in combination with the independent claim.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Sugiyama et al. (US 20040130018) and Iwayama et al. (US 20130328184).
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PRASHANT J. KHATRI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1783
/PRASHANT J KHATRI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1783
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