Ex Parte Hau-Riege et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 25, 2012

11109026 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 25, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
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.
11/109,026 04/18/2005 Stefan P. Hau-Riege IL-11185 9242
7590 09/26/2012
Alan H. Thompson
Deputy Laboratory Counsel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, L-703
Livermore, CA 94551-0808
EXAMINER
JELSMA, JONATHAN G
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1721
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/26/2012 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 STEFAN P. HAU-RIEGE, DONALD W. SWEENEY,
ANTON BARTY, PAUL B. MIRKARIMI, and DANIEL G. STEARNS
____________

Appeal 2011-003065
Application 11/109,026
Technology Center 1700
____________

Before PETER F. KRATZ, HUBERT C. LORIN, and
JEFFREY T. SMITH, 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 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 24, 26,
27, 29, and 30. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6.

Appeal 2011-003065
Application 11/109,026

2
Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a method for repairing
(compensating for) a repair induced defect in a mask blank repair zone by
altering a portion of an absorber pattern on the surface of the mask blank in
proximity to the repair zone, wherein the alteration is performed on a grid.
Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below:
1. A method for compensating for defect-repair-induced
residual variation of optical properties across a mask blank
repair zone, the method comprising altering a portion of an
absorber pattern on a surface of said mask blank in proximity to
said repair zone to compensate for a local disturbance of an
electro-magnetic field induced by said repair zone, wherein said
repair zone comprises an amplitude repair zone, wherein the
step of altering a portion of an absorber pattern is performed on
a grid.
The Examiner relies on the following prior art references as evidence
in rejecting the appealed claims:
Vacca US 6,076,465 June 20, 2000
Sweeney US 6,235,434 B1 May 22, 2001

The Examiner maintains the following ground of rejection:
Claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 24, 26, 27, 29, and 30 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sweeney in
view of Vacca.
We affirm the stated rejection for substantially the reasons set forth in
the Examiner’s Answer. We add the following for emphasis.
Appellants present substantially the same arguments against the
Examiner’s rejection for each of independent claims 1, 12, and 24 (Br. 4 and
5). The dependent claims are not separately argued (id. at 5). Accordingly,
Appeal 2011-003065
Application 11/109,026

3
we select claim 1 as the representative claim, on which we decide this
appeal.
The Examiner has reasonably found that Sweeney teaches or suggests
a method for repairing defects in a mask blank by altering or modifying a
portion of the absorber pattern on the surface of the mask blank at a location
proximate to the mask blank defect to compensate for local amplitude or
phase disturbances of an electromagnetic/optical field occasioned by the
defect (Ans. 4 and 5; Sweeney, abstract, col.1, ll. 15-31, col. 2, ll. 41- 67,
col. 3, ll. 44-51, col. 3, l. 62-col. 4, l. 30, and col. 4, l. 43- col. 5, l. 5).
The Examiner recognizes that Sweeney does not explicitly teach using
a grid in performing the repair process and/or applying Sweeney’s repair
process to compensate for a repair induced mask blank defect, as specified in
representative claim 1. Based on the disclosures of Sweeney, however, the
Examiner has determined that a repair process itself can result in a mask
blank defect area (repair zone) and that one of ordinary skill in the art would
have been led to apply the mask blank defect repair process of Sweeney to
compensate for such a repair-induced defect (Ans. 6 and 7).
As for use of a grid in the repair process, the Examiner turns to Vacca
for teaching that a grid can be employed for locating and detecting defects
on a mask/reticle (id. at 5; Vacca, col. 1, l. 57- col. 2, l. 1, col. 2, ll. 43-65,
col. 3, l. 63- col. 4, l. 33, col. 4, ll. 45-63, and col. 5, l. 60- col. 6, l. 40).
Given that Sweeney’s mask defect repair process would be expected to
require locating a defect prior to its repair (Ans. 6; Sweeney, col. 4, ll. 12-30
and col. 5, ll. 1-5) and based on the additional teachings of Vacca, the
Examiner basically maintains that one of ordinary skill in the art at the time
of the invention would have detected and determined (mapped) the mask
Appeal 2011-003065
Application 11/109,026

4
blank defect location for carrying out the repair method of Sweeney and, in
so doing, would have been led to employ the grid disclosed by Vacca in
Sweeney’s repair method (Ans. 6).
Appellants argue that: (1) Sweeney does not teach that the mask blank
defect being compensated for by the repair process was a defect caused by a
prior repair; that is, the defect was repair-induced; and (2) Vacca is directed
to the printability of a reticle defect and there is no direction or motivation
for one of ordinary skill in the art to look to the techniques used by Vacca
and apply such measures to a defect repair process, such as taught by
Sweeney (Br. 4 and 5). These arguments are not persuasive as to indicating
any substantive error in the Examiner’s obviousness determination.
As for the repair induced source of the mask blank defect, Appellants’
argument respecting the asserted lack of an explicit disclosure in Sweeney
regarding this aspect of the representative claim 1 process does not articulate
why one of ordinary skill in the art would not have applied Sweeney’s repair
(compensation) method to a mask blank defect that was introduced as a
result of a prior repair for reasons articulated by the Examiner (Ans. 9). As
indicated by the Examiner’s rebuttal, Sweeney’s repair method is not limited
to compensating for defects that can only result from other particularly
identified causations. In this regard, Appellants have not substantiated their
argument with credible evidence to explain why the repair technique taught
by Sweeney would not have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the
art as being applicable to compensating for a mask blank defect that was
repair induced.
Moreover, Appellants’ argument asserting a lack of motivation for the
Examiner’s proposed combination of Sweeney and Vacca is not persuasive
Appeal 2011-003065
Application 11/109,026

5
in the face of the Examiner’s reasonable explanation as to why one of
ordinary skill in the art would have been led to employ a grid technique,
such as taught by Vacca, in the mask blank repair process of Sweeney (id. at
10 and 11). In this regard, the mask blank repair process of Sweeney
requires altering or modifying an absorber pattern on the mask blank surface
proximate the defect to be compensated for, as indicated above and in the
Examiner’s Answer. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have
sought techniques for locating and determining the extent of the mask blank
defect to be addressed in Sweeney’s repair method and, in so doing, would
have been led to employ a grid system, such as taught by Vacca, for locating
and characterizing the extent of a mask defect. While Vacca is primarily
directed to a method for determining the printability of a reticle or mask
defect using a pixel grid image in assessing the location and other physical
aspects of a defect, as argued, Sweeney’s teachings provide the impetus for
one of ordinary skill in the art to seek out and employ known mask blank
defect location and assessment techniques, such as the grid system of Vacca,
for use in the repair process of Sweeney.
On this record, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection.

ORDER
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 CFR § 1.136(a).

AFFIRMED

bar