Ex Parte Allen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 4, 2017

13436881 (P.T.A.B. May. 4, 2017)

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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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