Ex Parte Chandrachood et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 9, 2015

11589598 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 2015)

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. 11/589,598 10/30/2006 Madhavi R. Chandrachood 011457 USA 02/ETCH/MASK-E 6094 7590 03/09/2015 Robert M. Wallace Law Office of Robert M. Wallace Suite 102 2112 Eastman Avenue Ventura, CA 93003 EXAMINER CHANDRA, SATISH ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1716 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/09/2015 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte MADHAVI R. CHANDRACHOOD, MICHAEL N. GRIMBERGEN, KHIEM K. NGUYEN, RICHARD LEWINGTON, IBRAHIM M. IBRAHIM, SHEEBA J. PANAYIL, and AJAY KUMAR ____________ Appeal 2013-000202 Application 11/589,598 1 Technology Center 1700 ____________ Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, STANLEY M. WEINBERG, and JOHN A. HUDALLA, Administrative Patent Judges. HUDALLA, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1–11 and 23. Claims 12–22 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Applied Materials, Inc. App. Br. 1–2. Appeal 2013-000202 Application 11/589,598 2 THE INVENTION Appellants’ invention is directed to a plasma reactor for processing a workpiece that is transparent at least within a range of wavelengths. Spec. ¶ 5. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A plasma reactor for processing a workpiece that is transparent at least within a range of wavelengths, comprising: a vacuum chamber having a sidewall and a ceiling; a workpiece support pedestal and having a support surface facing said ceiling and lying within said chamber for supporting a workpiece; an array of passages extending through said workpiece support pedestal from a bottom thereof and forming a two-dimensional matrix of rows and columns of openings in said support surface; a plurality of optical fibers, each fiber extending through a respective one of said passages and having: (a) a viewing end with a field of view through said opening in said support surface, and (b) an output end outside of said chamber; optical sensing apparatus coupled to said output ends of said optical fibers and being responsive in said range of wavelengths; an array of gas injection ports in communication with said chamber, said gas injection ports being distributed about a full circle in a circumferential direction with respect to said sidewall, a process gas supply and a plurality of controllable valves connected between said supply and respective ones of said array of gas injection ports; and a process controller connected to receive information from said optical sensing apparatus indicative of etch rate distribution and to transmit control commands to said controllable valves to affect distribution along said circumferential direction of gas flow rates in said gas injection ports. Appeal 2013-000202 Application 11/589,598 3 App. Br. 13–14 (Claims App’x). THE EXAMINER’S REJECTIONS Claims 1, 2, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Hanaoka (JP 05-136098, June 1, 1993), Masahiro (JP 2000-200783, July 18, 2000), Gondo (JP 10-298787, Nov. 10, 1998), and Sandhu (US 7,271,096 B2, Sept. 18, 2007) or Kholodenko (US 6,449,871 B1, Sept. 17, 2002). Ans. 4–7. Claims 3–7 and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Hanaoka, Masahiro, Gondo, Sandhu, Kholodenko, and Coronel (US 5,658,418, Aug. 19, 1997). Ans. 7–8. Claims 8, 10, and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Hanaoka, Masahiro, Gondo, Sandhu, Kholodenko, and Usui (US 6,961,131 B2, Nov. 1, 2005). Ans. 8–9. ISSUE Does the Examiner provide sufficient reasons for combining Hanaoka, Masahiro, Gondo, and Sandhu or Kholodenko? ANALYSIS “[A] patent composed of several elements is not proved obvious merely by demonstrating that each of its elements was, independently, known in the prior art.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). “[I]t can be important to identify a reason that would have prompted a person of ordinary skill in the relevant field to combine the elements in the Appeal 2013-000202 Application 11/589,598 4 way the claimed new invention does.” Id. “Even under [the] ‘expansive and flexible’ obviousness analysis [of KSR], we must guard against ‘hindsight bias’ and ‘ex post reasoning’ . . . .” St. Jude Med., Inc. v. Access Closure, Inc., 729 F.3d 1369, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 415, 421). We therefore analyze the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 to determine if the Examiner has provided a sufficient rationale for the combination of references posited in the rejection. After setting forth a combination of Hanaoka, Masahiro, and Gondo as teaching certain limitations in claim 1, see Ans. 4–6, the Examiner acknowledges that this combination “do[es] not disclose gas injection ports as being horizontal.” Id. at 6. The Examiner appears to be referring to the limitation “said gas injection ports being distributed about a full circle in a circumferential direction with respect to said sidewall” from claim 1. The Examiner then relies on Sandhu and Kholodenko as teaching “horizontal gas injection ports pointing in direction of the radius.” Id. at 6–7. The Examiner states the reason for combining either Sandhu or Kholodenko with Hanaoka, Masahiro, and Gondo as follows: “One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that orientation of gas flow has a bearing on plasma density distribution[,] and horizontal gas flow could be helpful in controlling plasma density near the substrate.” Id. at 6. The Examiner concludes that “it would be obvious to control [horizontal gas injectors] for spatial control of gas over the substrate according to the etching depth determined by the optical fibers in order to have even more uniformity and efficient gas utilization.” Id. at 7 (emphasis added). In addressing the reasons for adding Sandhu or Kholodenko to the combination of Hanaoka, Masahiro, and Gondo, Appellants contend that Appeal 2013-000202 Application 11/589,598 5 “there is no showing that Hanaoka/Masahiro needs any improvement” because “Hanaoka’s radial[] inner and outer gas injection zones appear to be ably served by Hanaoka’s apparatus.” Reply Br. 4. Appellants also argue that the addition of Sandhu or Kholodenko to the obviousness combination, which results in circumferential control of the etch rate, represents a change in the “mode of working” from the radial control of the etch rate in the primary reference, Hanaoka. See id. at 5. Appellants therefore contend that “there [is] no reason to introduce Sandhu or Kholodenko into the combination, without the hindsight of Appellants’ invention.” Id. at 4. We agree with Appellants. We observe that the Examiner has repeated the same rationale—improved etch rate uniformity—for adding Sandhu or Kholodenko to the combination as is given to combine Hanaoka, Masahiro, and Gondo in the first instance. Compare Ans. 6 (reason for combining Hanaoka, Masahiro, and Gondo is “for better resolution and to control etch rate uniformity directly”) with Ans. 7 (reason for adding Sandhu or Kholodenko is “to have even more uniformity and efficient gas utilization.”). As noted by Appellants, the Examiner has not established that the combination of Hanaoka, Masahiro, and Gondo needs further improvement. See Reply Br. 4. Because the combination of Hanaoka, Masahiro, and Gondo already operates effectively in its radial control configuration, a person having ordinary skill in the art, who was merely seeking to create a better plasma reactor, would have no reason to add the circumferential control features of Sandhu or Kholodenko into the combination of Hanaoka, Masahiro, and Gondo. See Kinetic Concepts, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 688 F.3d 1342, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2012). Appeal 2013-000202 Application 11/589,598 6 The Examiner’s rationale is also premised on the Examiner’s unsupported statement that the ordinarily skilled artisan would know that “horizontal gas flow could be helpful in controlling plasma density near the substrate.” Ans. 6. This ipse dixit reasoning is not sufficient to explain why a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to move from radial to circumferential control of the etch rate by adding Sandhu or Kholodenko to the obviousness combination. Under these circumstances, the obviousness rejection of claim 1 cannot stand. For the reasons above, we are persuaded of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. Accordingly, we do not sustain this rejection. Because the remaining claims are rejected based, at least in part, on the same obviousness combination as claim 1, we likewise do not sustain the rejections of claims 2–11 and 23. The Examiner’s application of Coronel in connection with claims 3–7 and 9 and Usui in connection with claims 8, 10, and 11 fails to cure the deficiency in the base rejection addressed above. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–11 and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is reversed. REVERSED msc