Ex Parte Baek et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 5, 2016

13622955 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 5, 2016)

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.
13/622,955 09/19/2012 Jonghoon Baek 014722USA/DISPLAY/AHRDWR/ 5479
44257 7590 12/07/2016
PATTERSON & SHERIDAN, LLP - - Applied Materials
24 Greenway Plaza, Suite 1600
HOUSTON, TX 77046
EXAMINER
MILLER, JR, JOSEPH ALBERT
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1715
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/07/2016 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):
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JONGHOON BAEK, BEOM SOO PARK, JOHN M. WHITE,
SHINICHI KURITA, SAM H. KIM and HSIAO-LIN YANG
Appeal 2015-002132
Application 13/622,955
Technology Center 1700
Before JEFFREY T. SMITH, WESLEY B. DERRICK, and
JEFFREY R. SNAY, Administrative Patent Judges.
SNAY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL1
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants2 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
decision rejecting claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We affirm.
1 We cite to the Specification (“Spec.”) filed Sep. 19, 2012; Final Office
Action (“Final Act.”) dated Apr. 17, 2014; Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”);
and Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”).
2 Appellants identify Applied Materials, Inc. as the real party in interest.
App. Br. 3.
Appeal 2015-002132
Application 13/622,955
Background
The subject matter on appeal relates to a method for measuring
plasma conditions in a capacitively coupled plasma (“CCP”) processing
chamber. Spec. 12. Claim 1 is illustrative and is reproduced below from
the Claims Appendix to the Appeal Brief as follows:
1. A method, comprising:
delivering RF power from an RF power source through a
match network to a backing plate of a capacitively coupled
plasma chamber;
igniting a plasma within the capacitively coupled plasma
chamber; and
measuring one or more phases of second and third
harmonics of the plasma at a location spaced from the match
network.
Rejections
The Examiner maintained the following grounds of rejection:3
I. Claims 1, 4—6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, and 19 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Choi,4 Johnson,5 and Quon.6
II. Claims 2, 3, 7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, and 20 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Choi, Johnson, Quon,
and Park.7
3 Final Act. 2—6; Ans. 2—5.
4 US 2008/0118663 Al, published May 22, 2008 (“Choi”).
5 US 6,313,584 Bl, issued Nov. 6, 2001 (“Johnson”).
6 US 2004/0135590 Al, published Jul. 15, 2004 (“Quon”).
7 US 2008/0074255 Al, published Mar. 27, 2008 (“Park”).
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Appeal 2015-002132
Application 13/622,955
OPINION
I
With regard to Rejection I, Appellants argue the claims as a group,
relying on limitations that are common to independent claims 1, 6, and 19.
See App. Br. 7—11. We, therefore, limit our discussion to representative
claim 1, and decide the propriety of Rejection I based on the representative
claim alone.
After having considered the evidence presented in this Appeal and
each of Appellants’ contentions, we are not persuaded that Appellants
identify reversible error, and we sustain the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection
for the reasons expressed in the Final Action, the Answer, and below.
As is relevant to Appellants’ arguments on appeal, the Examiner
found that Choi discloses a CCP method in which RF power is delivered
from a power source through a match network to a plasma chamber backing
plate, and igniting a plasma within the chamber. Final Act. 2. The
Examiner found that Johnson teaches “that it is useful to control a plasma in
a capacitively coupled system by measuring harmonics of a plasma coupling
element such as an electrode, wherein the harmonics include any of at least
the first five harmonics.” Id. (citing Johnson at col. 1,11. 30—56; 19,11. 25—
50; col. 20,11. 37^46; Fig. 13A). Acknowledging that Johnson does not
teach measuring the phase of harmonics, the Examiner found that Quon
teaches that it was known to measure the phase of harmonics for monitoring
and controlling plasma in plasma processing systems. Id. at 3; Ans. 6.
Appellants do not dispute the foregoing findings. See App. Br. 7—12;
Reply Br. 2-4. However, Appellants argue that Quon identifies a number of
drawbacks associated with known plasma monitoring techniques that
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Appeal 2015-002132
Application 13/622,955
measure the phase of harmonics and, for that reason, “teaches away from
using these measurements.” App. Br. 7 (citing Quon|| 10, 12, 13). As
Appellants point out, id. at 8—9, Quon states in the referenced passages that
measuring harmonic phases can involve “the difficulty of extracting a small
plasma resistance from a relatively large circuit resistance,” Quon 113, and
that “it can be difficult to obtain meaningful measurements when noise
interferes with low-amplitude RF signals” such as harmonics produced in
the plasma, id. 112. Based on these potential drawbacks noted in Quon,
Appellants argue that Quon “does not suggest the desirability of measuring a
harmonic phase,” App. Br. 8, “discourages a person having ordinary skill
from executing the methods stated in the claims,” id. at 9, and leads the
skilled artisan “in a direction divergent from the path taken by the
Appellant,” id. at 10.
Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive of reversible error. “[A]
reference may be said to teach away when a person of ordinary skill, upon
reading the reference, would be discouraged from following the path set out
in the reference, or would be led in a direction divergent from the path that
was taken by the applicant.” In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
But, “the mere disclosure of alternative designs does not teach away .... just
because better alternatives exist in the prior art does not mean that an
inferior combination is inapt for obviousness purposes.” In re Mouttet, 686
F.3d 1322, 1334 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (quotation marks and citations omitted).
As put by the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure, “[disclosed examples
and preferred embodiments do not constitute a teaching away from a broader
disclosure or nonpreferred embodiments.” MPEP § 2123 (II) (citing In re
Susi, 440 F.2d 442 (CCPA 1971)).
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Appeal 2015-002132
Application 13/622,955
Here, as the Examiner aptly observed, Quon teaches that,
notwithstanding the noted drawbacks, the measurement of plasma harmonics
was known and successfully used to control plasma in “most plasma
monitoring systems.” Ans. 6. See Quon 110 (“Even with this limitation,
these RF monitors are still used widely in semiconductor manufacturing . .
id. at 113 ([I]n most plasma monitoring methods, the impedance of the
plasma is determined by measuring the current, voltage and the phase
difference between the two at the fundamental frequency (or the first few
harmonics) of the RF power source.” Quon’s teaching that the technique in
question was widely used in plasma monitoring methods supports the
Examiner’s rationale that its use for plasma monitoring in Choi would have
been obvious. Johnson’s undisputed teaching that measuring harmonics was
useful for controlling plasma in a CCP process further supports that result.
On this record, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s
obviousness determination in Rejection I, which we therefore sustain.
II
Appellants do not particularly argue against Rejection II other than an
implicit reliance on the arguments raised and discussed above in connection
with Rejection I. App. Br. 12. Accordingly, we sustain Rejection II for the
reasons given above in connection with Rejection I.
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Appeal 2015-002132
Application 13/622,955
DECISION/ORDER
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) 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
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