Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 21, 2022

2021000697 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 21, 2022)

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. 14/818,415 08/05/2015 Shogo OKITA PIPMM-54878 8557 52054 7590 01/21/2022 PEARNE & GORDON LLP 1801 EAST 9TH STREET SUITE 1200 CLEVELAND, OH 44114-3108 EXAMINER FORD, NATHAN K ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1716 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/21/2022 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): patdocket@pearne.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SHOGO OKITA, HIROMI ASAKURA, SYOUZOU WATANABE, NORIYUKI MATSUBARA, MITSURU HIROSHIMA, and TOSHIHIRO WADA Appeal 2021-000697 Application 14/818,415 Technology Center 1700 Before JEFFREY B. ROBERTSON, N. WHITNEY WILSON, and CHRISTOPHER C. KENNEDY, Administrative Patent Judges. ROBERTSON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 1 This Decision includes citations to the following documents: Specification filed August 8, 2015 (“Spec.”); Final Office Action entered November 22, 2019 (“Non-Final Act.”); Appeal Brief filed June 4, 2020 (“Appeal Br.”); Examiner’s Answer entered September 16, 2020 (“Ans.”), and Reply Brief filed November 5, 2020 (“Reply Br.”). Appeal 2021-000697 Application 14/818,415 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 4-7 and 9-16.2, 3 Appeal Br. 5. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Appellant states the invention relates to a plasma processing apparatus and a plasma processing method for processing a substrate held on a transport carrier. Spec. ¶ 1. Claim 4, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter (Appeal Br. 25, Claims App.): 4. A plasma processing method for performing plasma processing to a substrate held on a transport carrier, the transport carrier including a frame and a holding sheet that covers an opening of the frame, the substrate being held on the holding sheet, the plasma processing method comprising: measuring a position of the substrate with respect to the frame and digitizing the position of the substrate with respect to the frame by a position measuring section; and performing plasma processing by loading the transport carrier holding the substrate on a plasma processing stage included in a plasma processing section, covering the frame and at least a part of the holding sheet by a cover, and exposing at least a part of the substrate from a window section provided in the cover, wherein 2 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. 3 Claims 1-3 have been withdrawn from consideration and claim 8 has been cancelled. See Appeal Br. 5. Appeal 2021-000697 Application 14/818,415 3 the transport carrier holding the substrate is loaded on the plasma processing stage to satisfy a predetermined positional relationship between the window section and the substrate based on information of the position of the substrate with respect to the frame which is measured by the position measuring section, and wherein the predetermined positional relationship is satisfied when a center of the substrate is aligned with a center of the window section. Claim 11 is also independent and recites a plasma processing method. Id. at 27-28. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Ansell et al. (“Ansell”) US 2014/0352889 A1 Dec. 4, 2014 Senda et al. (“Senda”) JP2006-269915 A, Machine English translation of record Oct. 5, 2006 REJECTION The Examiner rejected claims 4-7 and 9-16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Senda and Ansell. Final Act. 4. OPINION We limit our discussion to claim 4, which is sufficient for disposition of this rejection. Appeal 2021-000697 Application 14/818,415 4 The Examiner’s Rejection In rejecting claim 4, the Examiner found Ansell discloses a method of plasma processing a substrate held on a transport carrier as recited in claim 4, except for the claimed step of “measuring a position of the substrate with respect to the frame.” Final Act. 4. The Examiner found Senda discloses a system that accommodates substrates affixed to a transport carrier, where Senda discloses an alignment operation that includes a measuring step in a position measuring section in order to assess the position of the substrate with respect to the carrier. Final Act. 4. The Examiner found that Senda discloses alignment operations that accurately locate and position the substrate’s central axis. Id. The Examiner determined that because Ansell intends to align the central axes of the substrate and window section of the cover, it would have been obvious to integrate Senda’s measuring technique with Ansell’s method to accurately locate and position the substrate’s central axis. Id. Appellant’s Arguments Appellant argues Senda does not disclose measuring the position of the substrate relative to the frame. Appeal Br. 12. Rather, Appellant contends Senda discloses measuring the position of a semiconductor wafer on a support plate by measuring the circumferential edges of each. Id. at 12-13. In this regard, Appellant argues that the circumferential edge of Senda’s carrier is not a “frame” as recited in claim 4, because the frame in claim 4 includes an opening, and the support plate in Senda does not have an opening. Id. Appeal 2021-000697 Application 14/818,415 5 Discussion The Examiner has not adequately established that the combination of Ansell and Senda teaches or suggests the “measuring” step in claim 4. The Examiner found that Senda discloses measuring the substrate position relative to its carrier (equivalent to the recited holding sheet), and more specifically, measuring the circumferential edge of the carrier. Ans. 3, citing Senda ¶ 11. In this regard, the Examiner also stated that applying Senda to Ansell “would necessarily entail detection of the circumferential edge of Ansell’s carrier” and that “because the frame portion (44) constitutes the circumferential edge of Ansell’s carrier, detection of the circumferential edge is precisely synonymous with the detection of the frame.” Id. The Examiner determined that the substrate position is measured “with respect to the frame” by equating the position of the circumferential edge of the carrier in Ansell to the position of the frame in Ansell. Id. Even if we were to agree with the Examiner that if the circumferential edge of frame 44 and circumferential edge of Ansell’s tape 42 were precisely matched, and measuring the circumferential edge of the tape 42 would constitute measuring the position of the substrate with respect to the frame, the disclosure in Ansell is insufficient to support the Examiner’s position. That is, Ansell does not disclose that the tape 42 and frame 44 are precisely aligned at their circumferential edges. Ansell ¶ 51; Fig. 2. It is unclear from Figure 2 in Ansell whether that is the case, or that one of ordinary skill in the art would have necessarily understood the tape and frame disclosed in Ansell to be aligned at the circumferential edges.4 4 In this regard, we observe that Figures 1B, 4B, and 8 of the instant Application do not appear to show such an alignment. Appeal 2021-000697 Application 14/818,415 6 Therefore, the Examiner’s position is not based on sufficient rational underpinnings. “‘[R]ejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements; instead, there must be some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.’” KSR Int’l. Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007), quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006). As a result, the Examiner’s rejection does not provide sufficient reasoning to render the method recited in claim 4 as obvious over Ansell and Senda. For these reasons, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claim 4. Because independent claim 11 contains the similar language of “measuring a position of the substrate with respect to the frame and digitizing the position of the substrate with respect to the frame by the position measuring section” (Appeal Br. 27), we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claim 11 as well. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 4-7, 9-16 103 Senda, Ansell 4-7, 9-16 REVERSED