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 .
This Office Action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on September 01, 2025. In virtue of this communication, claims 1-6 are currently presented in the instant application.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/01/2025 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 § 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 1-2 and 5-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abe et al. (US 2008/0093024) in view of Wheatley et al. (US 2013/0038136).
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With respect to claims 1 and 6, Abe discloses in figure 3 and 7A a plasma processing apparatus and a method thereof comprising: a radio-frequency power supply (58, e.g., a RF generator or a RF power source); a pair of plasma electrodes (56A-56B, e.g., electrodes); a matching box (74, e.g., a matching box) located between the pair of plasma electrodes and the radio-frequency power supply and having an impedance matching circuit (L1-L2, C1-C2, e.g., a matching circuit) including a first variable inductor (L1, e.g., a first variable inductor in figure 7A) and a second variable inductor (L2, e.g., a second variable inductor in figure 7A); and a controller (78, e.g., a controller), wherein the controller has an efficiency that correlates an inductance of the first variable inductor and an inductance of the second variable inductor with an efficiency of the matching box (paragraph 0030, e.g., “the voltage to be applied to both the plasma electrodes can be significantly increased by properly adjusting the impedance, as such increasing the plasma density as well as enhancing the efficiency of generating plasma”), and wherein the controller is configured to execute: performing impedance matching by varying the inductance of the first variable inductor and the inductance of the second variable inductor (figure 7A shows variable inductors L1-L2 for performing impedance matching features thereof); obtaining the efficiency of the matching box based on the inductance of the first variable inductor and the inductance of the second variable inductor after the impedance matching and the efficiency (see paragraph 0030), and calculating output power of the radio-frequency power supply based on the obtained efficiency of the matching box and supply power supplied to the plasma electrodes (figure 3 shows the controller receiving a measured power from a power detector 76 for controlling, estimating or calculating the power applied to the electrodes 56A-56B thereof) ; and controlling the output power of the radio-frequency power supply based on the calculated output power (paragraph 0063, e.g., “the control unit 78 adjusts the load of the high frequency matching circuit and plasma P”).
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Abe does not explicitly disclose that the controller has an efficiency map.
Wheatley discloses in figure 11 an apparatus comprising a power source (1124), a matching circuit (1126), a controller (having a controller, not shown, for providing a control signal 1102 to control the power source 1124 thereof) and a load (1150), wherein the controller has an efficiency map (paragraph 0113, e.g., “the filter circuit 1126 and operating frequency to shift a reactance in order to map the high efficiency curve 902 to the transformed impedance curve of the filter circuit 1126”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the apparatus of Abe with an efficiency map as taught by Wheatley for improving a high efficiency matching impedance applied to the plasma electrodes thereof since this configuration for the stated purpose would have been deemed obvious to a person skilled in the art.
With respect to claim 2, the combination of Abe and Wheatley disclose that wherein the controller is further configured to execute: repeating, as one cycle, the performing the impedance matching, the calculating the output power of the radio-frequency power supply, and the controlling the output power of the radio-frequency power supply (figures 4, 6 and 10 shows a repeating cycle for operating power thereof).
With respect to claim 5, the combination of Abe and Wheatley disclose that wherein the performing the impedance matching includes selecting a matching position of the inductance of the first variable inductor and the inductance of the second variable inductor such that the efficiency of the matching box in the efficiency map is 80% or more (figures 7A and 9B of Abe shows the selecting impedance matching features to enhance a high efficiency thereof).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Prior art Kobayashi – US 2023/0235460
Prior art Kobayashi et al. – US 2022/0293394
Prior art Ulrich et al. – US 2020/0126765
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/TUNG X LE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2845 September 14, 2026
