Ex Parte Allen et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 4, 201713436881 (P.T.A.B. May. 4, 2017) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O.Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 13/436,881 03/31/2012 Robert David Allen ARC920110095US1 1643 93453 7590 05/08/2017 Mi ch a el R Roberts EXAMINER 4912 Buckline Crossing Atlanta, GA 30338 CHU, JOHN S Y ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1722 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/08/2017 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): MRobert s @ MRRPatents. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ROBERT DAVID ALLEN, PHILLIP JOE BROCK, MASAKI FUJIWARA, KAZUHIKO MAEDA, and HOA D. TRUONG Appeal 2015-001553 Application 13/436,881 Technology Center 1700 Before PETER F. KRATZ, WESLEY B. DERRICK, and JEFFREY R. SNAY, Administrative Patent Judges. KRATZ, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on an appeal1 under 35U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1—21, 29, and 30. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6. Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a photoacid generating polymer (PAG polymer) comprising the combination of three specified monomers yielding a polymer having (first, second and third repeat units as set forth in independent claims 1 or 19) and a photoresist composition, as set forth in claims 29 and 30, comprising the polymer of claim 1 or claim 19. 1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as International Business Machines Corporation and Central Glass Co. Ltd (Appeal Br. 3). Appeal 2015-001553 Application 13/436,881 According to Appellants, the disclosed and claimed PAG polymer can provide for higher resolution resist pattern formation (reduced line spacing/feature width) for a resist material including such a PAG polymer (Spec. 2-11,23, 137, 177). Claims 1 and 19 are illustrative. A copy can be found in the Claims Appendix of the Appeal Brief. The Examiner relies on the following prior art references as evidence in rejecting the appealed claims: Maeda et al. US 2010/0304303 A1 Dec. 2, 2010 Ohashi et al. US 2011/0003247 Al Jan. 6, 2011 Kato et al. US 2012/0322006 Al Dec. 20, 2012 The Examiner maintains the following grounds of rejection: Claims 1—21, 29 and 30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kato in view of Ohashi or Maeda. We reverse the stated obviousness rejection. Our reasoning follows. Appellants group claims 1—18, and 29 together and group claims 19— 21, and 30 together (App. Br. 11). The Examiner finds that representative claim 1 differs from Kato in that “Kato et al. lacks the claimed third repeat unit as recited in claim 1 to a norbomyl ester ring [that] comprises a monovalent substituent having -L-C(CF3)2 (OH)” (Final Act. 4). Appellants do not dispute this determination of the Examiner. The Examiner finds that Maeda and Ohashi disclose resins with photoacid generator on the polymer backbone, wherein Maeda discloses “flouroalkyl group containing units having cyclic alkyl groups as functionally equivalent”, and wherein “the repeating unit of formula (9) [of 2 Appeal 2015-001553 Application 13/436,881 Maeda] is disclosed in Kato et al., while the repeating unit of formula 7 [of Kato] is the claimed repeating unit to norbomyl ester group (Final Act. 4—6). In addition, the Examiner finds that Ohashi teaches “the functional equivalence of the fluoroalkyl groups having a norbomyl ester and other cyclic alkyl groups” (Final Act. 6; Kato p. 19; Ohashi pp. 33—35). The Examiner maintains that an ordinarily skilled artisan would have been led, prima facie, “to use any of the repeating units having a fluoroalkyl group as taught in either Maeda or Ohashi in place of the repeating unit in Kato et al. with the expectation of [achieving the] same or similar results for good DOF, LER, sensitivity, and resolution” (Final Act. 6). However, in the Examiner’s Answer, the Examiner finds that Maeda and Ohashi do not disclose “resins having a photoacid generator [covalently bound] on the polymer backbone” essentially retracting the contrary finding in the Final Rejection (Ans. 9). Thus, Appellants and the Examiner appear to concur that only Kato, of the three applied references, teaches polymer bound PAGs but does not teach the norbomyl ester repeat unit required by independent claim 1. (App. Br. 14; Ans. 9). Appellants argue, inter alia, that the Examiner has not established, prima facie, that one or ordinary skill in the art would have been led to use a repeat unit as required as the third repeat unit of Appellants claim 1 photoacid generator polymer (PAG) as a (third) repeat unit for a polymer bound PAG of Kato as a functional equivalent repeat unit for Kato with a reasonable expectation of success based on the teachings of Maeda and Ohashi (App. Br. 13—18). According to Appellants, this is at least, in part, because; (1) Maeda, which the Examiner relies on for evincing the 3 Appeal 2015-001553 Application 13/436,881 equivalence of the repeating unit to be substituted in Kato’s polymer, and Ohashi are directed to resins without polymer bound PAGs that teach or suggest a plethora of possible repeat units for the resins of Maeda and/or Ohashi, and (2) the Examiner has not reasonably articulated why when all the test results of Maeda are considered, including the Table 3 test results of Maeda, which results Appellants argue to include less desirable, non equivalent results for a resin having a repeat unit corresponding to Appellants third repeat unit of representative claim 1, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been reasonably led to make the proposed substitution of a repeating unit in the covalently bound PAG polymer of Kato on the basis of substituting a known equivalent, as proposed by the Examiner (App. Br. 16—18; Reply Br. 3; Ans. 9). Appellants maintain that the only direction for arriving at the claimed (PAG polymer) comprising the combination of three specified monomers yielding a polymer having (first, second and third repeat units as set forth in independent claim 1) and a photoresist composition comprising the polymer of claim 1 with a reasonable expectation of success is found in Appellants’ Specification (App. Br. 18; Reply Br. 4). In light of Appellants’ countervailing arguments, we determine that the Examiner has presented insufficient factual findings and analysis to establish that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been taught to substitute “norbomyl ester unit in place of either hexaflouroisopropyl alcoholic repeat unit found in KATO et al.” as a functional equivalent that would reasonably be expected to yield “the same or similar results of forming a clean rectangular pattern” when used as a replacement repeating unit in Kato’s PAG polymer” based on the test results for the non-PAG 4 Appeal 2015-001553 Application 13/436,881 polymers reported by Maeda (Ans. 8, 9). As for Ohashi, the Examiner states that “OHASHI is cumulative to MAEDA” (Ans. 8). Consequently, the Examiner has not carried the burden to establish an apparent reason for the proposed modification of Kato based on the proposed substitution of a norbomyl ester repeat unit from the resins of Maeda or Ohashi for use in place of any particular repeat unit found in Kato’s PAG polymer. Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of representative claim 1 and the claims depending thereon and grouped together therewith. Concerning representative claim 19, Appellants argue that Kato and Maeda teach repeat units derived from a norbomene monomer having a pendant—NHS (=0)2(CF3) group, which do not have the norbomyl ester group of claim 19 and Ohashi is silent as to repeat units having such groups (App. Br. 18). Therefore, Appellants contend that the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 19, as well as the rejected claims depending therefrom (claims 20, 21, and 30) is not well-founded {id.). The Examiner does not separately address claim 19 in the rejection or respond to Appellants’ argument (Final Act. 2—6; Ans. 3—10; see Reply Br. 4.). Consequently, the Examiner has not carried the burden to establish the obviousness of the subject matter of claim 19 and the claims depending thereon and grouped together therewith. 5 Appeal 2015-001553 Application 13/436,881 CONCLUSION The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—21, 29, and 30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kato in view of Ohashi or Maeda is reversed. REVERSED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation