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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d).
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03/05/2025 and 05/09/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2 and 9-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kyuhyun Park & Jang-Sik Lee “Controller Synthesis of Ni/CuOx/Ni nanowires by electrochemical deposition with self-compliance bipolar resistive switching.”
Regarding claim 1, Park teaches a method for manufacturing a resistance change memory, the method comprising forming an active layer between a lower electrode and an upper electrode, wherein the active layer comprises a metal oxide thin film and metal nanoparticles, and the forming of the active layer is performed by an electrochemical reaction process (Fig. 1, active layer Ni/CuOx/Ni is formed electrochemical deposition (ECD) process. The active layer comprises metal oxide thin film and metal nanoparticles).
Regarding claim 2, Park teaches the method of claim 1, wherein in the forming of the active layer, the active layer is formed so that multiple conductive filaments are uniformly formed through an electrochemical pulse deposition process (multiple conductive filaments are formed uniformly during the electrochemical pulse deposition process, see Page 1 para. 3 “currently, bottom-up approaches …”).
Regarding claim 10, Park further teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the metal oxide thin film and metal nanoparticles are composed of at least one metal selected from the group consisting of Cu, Ti, Zr, Pb, Mn, Bi, Al, Sb, Fe, Co, Nb, and Cr (Park teaches using Cu, see Fig. 1).
Regarding claim 11, Park further teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising after the forming of the active layer, forming an upper electrode on the formed active layer (electrode is formed on the active layer, see top of page 5).
Regarding claim 12, Park further teaches the method of claim 11, wherein the forming of the upper electrode is performed through an electron beam deposition process with an electrode precursor input (Top of page 5).
Regarding claim 13, Park further teaches a resistance change memory, which is manufactured according to claim 1, comprising: a lower electrode; an active layer positioned on the lower electrode; and an upper electrode positioned on the active layer, wherein the active layer has multiple conductive filaments uniformly formed (the memory cell is formed using three-electrode cell, see top of page 5).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-9 and 14-15 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:
After further search and consideration it is determined that the prior art of record neither anticipated nor renders obvious the claimed subject matter of the instant application as a whole either taken alone or in combination, in particular, prior art of record does not teach, the following limitation(s) in combination with the remaining claimed limitation:
With regards to claim 3, wherein the forming of the active layer comprises: forming a first metal oxide thin film layer; forming a metal nanoparticle layer on the formed first metal oxide thin film layer; and forming a second metal oxide thin film layer on the formed metal nanoparticle layer.
With regards to claim 14, wherein the active layer comprises: a first metal oxide thin film layer; a metal nanoparticle layer positioned on the first metal oxide thin film layer; and a second metal oxide thin film layer positioned on the metal nanoparticle layer.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KHAMDAN N ALROBAIE whose telephone number is (571)270-7099. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Thursday (8AM till 6PM).
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/Khamdan N. Alrobaie/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2824
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