Ex Parte Hong et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 10, 201612077814 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 10, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/077,814 98068 7590 Hollingsworth Davis 8000 West 78th Street Suite 450 03/20/2008 11/15/2016 Minneapolis, MN 55439 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Sooyoul Hong 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. STC.085.Al 7421 EXAMINER CHAU, LINDA N ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1785 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/15/2016 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): tdotter@hdpatlaw.com roswood@hdpatlaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SOOYOUL HONG, KISEOK MOON, and CARL (XIAO) CHE Appeal2015-007012 Application 12/077,814 Technology Center 1700 Before PETER F. KRAZ, JEFFREY T. SMITH, and N. WHITNEY WILSON, Administrative Patent Judges. KRATZ, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner's final rejection of claims 11-15, 17, 18, 20-27, and 29-38. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6. Appellants' claimed invention is directed to apparatus comprising a substrate, an anti-ferromagnetic layer comprising FexNi1-xO over the substrate, and a patterned perpendicular magnetic layer over the anti- ferromagnetic layer and an exchange-spring formed by the latter two layers. A method for forming the device/apparatus is also claimed. The Appeal2015-007012 Application 12/077,814 Specification provides that "[t]he FexNi1_xO material has a Neel temperature 1 between 200° to 520° K" (Spec. 8). Claim 11 is illustrative and reproduced below: 11. An apparatus, comprising: a substrate; an anti-ferromagnetic layer over the substrate comprising FexNi1_xO; a patterned perpendicular magnetic layer over the anti-ferromagnetic layer; and an exchange-spring formed by the anti-ferromagnetic layer and the magnetic layer. The Examiner relies on the following prior art references as evidence in rejecting the appealed claims: De Haas Suess Berger US 2004/0086750 Al US 2007 /0292720 Al US 2008/0292907 Al May 6, 2004 Dec. 20, 2007 Nov. 27, 2008 Nogues, Exchange bias, Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 192, 203-232 (1999). The Examiner maintains the following grounds of rejection: 1. Claims 11-15, 17, 18, 21-27, and29-36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Suess in view of De Hass. 2. Claims 20, 37, and 38 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Suess in view of De Hass and Berger. 1 According to the Oxford English Dictionary ( oed.com), an antiferromagnetic material's Neel temperature (TN) is a transition temperature (point), above which temperature the material is paramagnetic. According to Nogues (J. Nogues, Ivan Schuller, Exchange Bias, Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, 192 (1993) 203-232) submitted by Appellants and of record, the TN for NiO is 520 °K and the TN range for FexNi1-xO is 200-520 °K (Table 2, p. 212). 2 Appeal2015-007012 Application 12/077,814 Appellants' argument and Declaration evidence expose no reversible error in the Examiner's obviousness rejections. Accordingly, we affirm both of the stated rejections. Appellants argue the rejected claims together as a group with respect to the first stated rejection with the exception of dependent claim 17. Accordingly, we select claim 11 as the representative claim for the claims subject to the first stated rejection with the exception of separately argued claim 17, which we consider separately. Appellants rely on the arguments as made with respect to the first stated rejection in traversing the Examiner's second stated rejection. Rejection 1 The Examiner has determined, inter alia, that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to employ an anti-ferromagnetic layer comprising NiO in the device of Suess based on DeHaas's teaching of a ferromagnetic layer that may comprise NiO (Final Act. 2--4). In this regard, the Examiner takes the position that representative claim 11 embraces a ferromagnetic layer that comprises NiO based on the Examiner's interpretation of the claim term FexNi1-xO as embracing NiO (xis not specified and may be equal to zero) (Final Act. 7-8; Ans. 3). Appellants limit their argument to the FexNi1-xO material requirement of the antiferromagnetic layer and argue that the Examiner's claim interpretation is unreasonably broad and the rejection is thereby in error because one of ordinary skill in the art would not interpret x to be zero given that the compound formula includes iron (Fe) as evinced by a Declaration of 3 Appeal2015-007012 Application 12/077,814 Dr. Thomas P. Nolan when interpreted in light of the subject Specification (App. Br. 5---6; Reply Br. 5---6). Dr. Nolan states that "[s]ince the compound specifies iron, one would not normally expect "x" to be equal to zero" (Deel. i-f 6). Moreover, Dr. Nolan points to the subject Specification statement concerning the Neel temperature range of 200 - 520 °K for FexNi1_xO material as supporting an interpretation of x not being equal to zero for the claimed FexNi1-xO of the anti-magnetic layer (Deel. i-f 7; Spec. p. 8, 11. 6-9). In particular, Dr. Nolan declares that according to Wikipedia, the FeO Neel temperature is 198 °K and the Neel temperature for NiO is 525 °K, which indicates that the Specification Neel temperature range supports an interpretation of the compound formula FexNi1_xO as not including zero or one as a value for x (Declaration i-f 7). In light of the above, Appellants argue that the Examiner's interpretation of the claimed formula FexNi1_xO so as to read on NiO is unreasonable and contend that the rejection should be reversed because it is premised on a faulty claim interpretation (App. Br. 5---6). In addition, and as for separately argued dependent claim 1 7, Appellants contend that the Neel temperature limitation set forth in dependent claim 17 "between about 200° and 520° K" does not include 525 °K, which is the Neel temperature for NiO according to the Declaration of Dr. Nolan. We reject Appellants proposed claim construction and concur with the Examiner that the contested claim term x as employed in representative claim 11 is open to a value of zero. Hence, we are not persuaded of reversible error in the Examiner's first stated obviousness rejection. 4 Appeal2015-007012 Application 12/077,814 As observed by the Examiner, the subject Specification place no numerical limits on the value of x in the formula FexNi1_xO leaving the x term open to having a value of zero and the Declaration of Dr. Nolan is not persuasive of error in such a broadest reasonable construction of the claim when the claim including this contested claim term is read in light of the subject Specification by one of ordinary skill in the art. In this regard, Dr. Nolan statement that "one would not normally expect "x" to be equal to zero" does not serve to articulate why one of ordinary skill in the art would not read x as being open to a zero value when read in light of the subject Specification (Ans. 3; Deel. i-f 6). Moreover, dependent claim 1 7 employs the term "about" in providing the Specification Neel temperature range that was set forth without an "about" qualifier in the detailed description section at page 8 of the Specification. Thus, the inclusion of dependent claiml 7 indicates that representative independent claim 11, from which claim 1 7 depends, is not limited by the Neel temperature range set forth in the detailed description of the Specification. In this regard, such a broadest reasonable construction of the contested claim term in representative claim 11 is consistent with the Specification statement indicating that the invention is not limited by the specific constructions described in the Specification (Spec. 8, 11. 15-22). Significantly, the Examiner's claim construction, with which we agree, is bolstered by Nogues, as submitted by Appellants, wherein NiO is reported as having a TN= 520 °K. We credit the latter submission over the Wikipedia derived TN= 525 °K for NiO as reported in the Declaration of Dr. Nolan. Hence, even if we considered the FexNi1_xO material of claim 11 to be limited to the Neel temperature range of 200-520 °K reported in the detailed 5 Appeal2015-007012 Application 12/077,814 description of the subject Specification (which also applies to separately argued claim 17), NiO (TN = 520 °K) would not be excluded by the claim term FexNi1_xO. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner's first stated rejection. Rejection 2 Concerning the separate obviousness rejection of certain dependent claims over Suess in view of De Hass and Berger, Appellants limit their argument to substantially the same the argument presented against Rejection 1 in relying on the Neel temperature range as a patentable distinction for the claimed material (App. Br. 6). It follows that we shall affirm the latter rejection (Rejection 2). CONCLUSION The Examiner's decision to reject the appealed claims is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation