Ex Parte Ozzello et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 23, 2016

13040558 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 23, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/040,558 03/04/2011 Anthony D. Ozzella JR.
119138 7590 08/25/2016
BUCHANAN INGERSOLL & ROONEY PC - LAM RESEARCH CORP
1737 KING STREET, SUITE 500
ALEXANDRIA, VA 22314
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.
1015292-000430 3156
EXAMINER
LEE, DOUGLAS
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1714
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/25/2016 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):
ADIPDOCl@BIPC.COM
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ANTHONY D. OZZELLO, JR. and YING-LIANG CHUANG
Appeal2014-009866
Application 13/040,558
Technology Center 1700
Before PETER F. KRATZ, MARK NAGUMO, and JULIA HEANEY,
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, 3-16, and 18-24. We have
jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6.
Appellants' claimed invention is directed to an aqueous cleaning
solution comprising hydrofluoric acid, sulfuric acid, carboxylic acid (malic
acid or iminodiacetic acid), and water in specified amounts, and, optionally,
one or more species of chelating agent and one or more species of amine,
and wherein the solution is free of nitric acid.
Appellants disclose that "[ t ]he cleaning solution is preferably free of
alcohols, peroxides, (e.g. hydrogen peroxide) and esters" and "[ t ]he cleaning
solution can also be free of ammonium hydroxide, chelating agent, amine,
Appeal2014-009866
Application 13/040,558
nitric acid and/or surfactant" without particularly describing if and when the
optional exclusion of each of such ingredients may be beneficial (Spec.
ii 28).
The cleaning solution is disclosed and claimed to be effective for
removing sidewall polymer produced during a damascene process on a
wafer while minimizing damage to low-k interlayer dielectric films (Spec.
iii! 7, 8). Also, a method of using the cleaning solution for removing
sidewall polymer is claimed.
Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below:
1. An aqueous cleaning solution effective for removing sidewall
polymer produced during a damascene process on a wafer containing one or
more metallic interconnect materials and one or more low-k interlayer
dielectric material films, the cleaning solution comprising:
0.01to0.1 w/w% of hydrofluoric acid,
1 to 5 w/w% of sulfuric acid,
1 to 15 w/w% of a carboxylic acid,
up to 2 w/w% of one or more species of chelating agent,
up to 15 \'X.//\'X/% of one or more species of amine, and
75 w/w% or more of water;
wherein the cleaning solution does not damage the one or more low-k
interlayer dielectric material films,
wherein the cleaning solution is free of nitric acid, and
wherein the carboxylic acid is malic acid or iminodiacetic acid.
The Examiner relies on the following prior art references as evidence
in rejecting the appealed claims:
Seijo et al.
Lee et al.
Aoyama et al.
Cui
US 6,773,873 B2
US 2007/0051700 Al
US 7,399,365 B2
US 2009/0131295 Al
2
Aug. 10, 2004
("Seijo")
Mar. 8, 2007
("Lee")
July 15, 2008
("Aoyama")
May 21, 2009
Appeal2014-009866
Application 13/040,558
The Examiner maintains the following grounds of rejection:
Claims 1, 3-16, 18, and 22-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Aoyama. 1 Claims 19
and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Lee in view of Aoyama and Cui. Claims 1 and 21 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Seijo.
A review of the opposing positions articulated by Appellants and the
Examiner and the evidence of obviousness adduced by the Examiner reveals
that Appellants' arguments and Specification evidence are insufficient to
identify reversible error in the Examiner's obviousness rejections. In re
Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2011).
Accordingly, we affirm the stated obviousness rejections for
substantially the fact findings and the reasons set forth by the Examiner in
the Examiner's Answer and in the Final Office Action. We offer the
following for emphasis.
Concerning the first stated rejection, Appellants argue the rejected
claims together with claim 1 and Appellants do not present separate
arguments with respect to the other grounds of rejection. 2 Accordingly, we
select claim 1 as the representative claim on which we focus in deciding this
appeal.
1 The Examiner inadvertently includes claim 1 7 in the statement of this
rejection (Ans. 2). Claim 17 is cancelled (App. Br. 2).
2 The Examiner's second and third stated obviousness rejections are based
on additional or other prior art evidence in rejecting certain claims subject to
these latter rejections. However, Appellants do not separately address the
latter grounds of rejection (App. Br. 13).
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Appeal2014-009866
Application 13/040,558
Appellants acknowledge that Lee teaches or suggests an aqueous
cleaning composition that can include a fluoride component, such as
hydrofluoric acid (HF) in a weight percent amount (between about 0.001 and
10.0 weight percent) and an inorganic acid (sulfuric acid) component in a
weight percent amount (between about 3 and 20 weight percent), which
overlap the amounts of HF and sulfuric acid required by the cleaning
composition of representative claim 1 (App. Br. 6; Lee i-fi-f 12, 13, 36; claim
1 ). Lee teaches that nitric acid (HN03) can be employed alternatively to
sulfuric acid as the preferred inorganic acid in one embodiment and, as
evinced by the disclosures of Lee, nitric acid is not required to be utilized as
the inorganic acid (Lee i-fi-f 13, 36, 37, claims 1, 4). Accordingly and as
urged by the Examiner, Lee suggests the use of an aqueous cleaning solution
that can be free of nitric acid, as required by Appellants' representative
claim 1 (Ans. 3).
As for the use of a carboxylic acid ingredient as required by
Appellants' representative claim 1, the Examiner has determined that Lee
teaches or suggests that the cleaning composition of Lee can include an
organic acid, such as acetic acid, tartaric acid, and/or oxalic acid (carboxylic
acids), 3 in a weight percent amount (not more than 50 weight percent) that
overlaps the 1 to 15 weight percent amount of carboxylic acid required by
representative claim 1 (Ans. 3--4, 17; Lee i-fi-f 14, 37). 4 While Lee does not
3 Appellants acknowledge that acetic acid and oxalic acid are useful
carboxylic acids for their cleaning solution (see Spec. i128).
4 A chelating agent and an amine are optional ingredients of the
representative claim 1 cleaning solution as indicated by the "up to" weight
percent amounts specified for these optional components, which specified
amounts embrace zero weight percent amounts of these components. In any
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Appeal2014-009866
Application 13/040,558
explicitly describe malic acid and/or iminodiacetic acid as the organic acid
as required by representative claim 1, Appellants' contention of a lack of
suggestion of the particular components required by representative claim 1
exposes no harmful error in the Examiner's determination that Aoyama
teaches that malic acid is an alternative organic acid to oxalic acid that
would have been obvious to employ as an available substitute organic acid
for use in a fluoride cleaning solution, such as the solution of Lee (App. Br.
8; Ans. 3--4; 18-19; Aoyama, col. 14, 1. 58---col. 15, 1. 7).
Concerning the representative claim 1 functional limitation with
respect to effectiveness of the cleaning solution for sidewall polymer
removal that was deposited during a damascene process on a specified wafer
and wherein the cleaning solution would not damage low-k interlayer
dielectric material films, Appellants have not established that this functional/
use limitation distinguishes the cleaning composition of representative claim
1 from the cleaning compositions suggested by the applied prior art. In
particular, Appellants contend the Specification tests, including tests T24
and T25 show how the same composition can exhibit different effects
(including damage) on low-k interlayer dielectric material films depending
on the temperature that the cleaning method is conducted at (App. Br. 7;
Spec. i-f 24; Tables 1, 2). However and as observed by the Examiner, the
latter argument and evidence does not serve to establish whether the
cleaning composition suggested by the applied prior art would have been
event, Appellants' argument shows no harmful error in the Examiner's
determination that the applied prior art would have suggested the use of
chelating agent(s) and an amine in the cleaning solution of Lee in amounts
corresponding to the claimed amounts (Ans. 2, 4).
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Appeal2014-009866
Application 13/040,558
incapable of the expressed functionality required by claim 1 at least under
some conditions of use. In this regard, representative claim 1 does not
restrict the recited functionality of the cleaning composition that is argued as
a distinguishing feature as being a functionality that is required for the
composition at all conditions of use or at a particular temperature of use.
[W]here the Patent Office has reason to believe that a functional
limitation asserted to be critical for establishing novelty in the
claimed subject matter may, in fact, be an inherent
characteristic of the prior art, it possesses the authority to
require the applicant to prove that the subject matter shown to
be in the prior art does not possess the characteristic relied on.
In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473, 1478 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
Appellants' argument and cited evidence (as regards compositions
T24 and T25) seems to indicate that a cleaning composition can possess the
claimed functionality at certain temperatures and/or time of application
without having the functionality at other temperatures and/or time of
application. Moreover, Appellants refer to the Specification tests with
compositions T7 and Tl 8 as evincing that some compositions with
components within the claimed ranges can damage low-k interlayer
dielectric material films (App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 1; Spec. i-fi-f 17, 20; Tables 1,
2). However, the latter example compositions were tested at 40 °C and do
not substantiate whether damage would occur at other treatment conditions,
including lower temperatures. Moreover, Appellants offer to amend Table 2
of the Specification, which shows no damage to a low-k film under the test
conditions for composition T8 is without merit because the Specification has
not been amended and Appellants have not substantiated with further timely
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Application 13/040,558
submitted evidence that the reported test results for composition T8 in the
Specification Table 2 are, in fact, incorrect.
Thus, Appellants have not furnished sufficient evidence to establish
that the cleaning compositions suggested by the applied prior art that overlap
with the representative claim 1 cleaning composition and which
compositions would have been expected to be useful for the purposes of Lee
based on the applied prior art teachings would, on the other hand, have been
incapable of the representative claim 1 functionality.
Nor have Appellants carried the burden to establish unexpected results
for a cleaning composition reasonably commensurate with the scope of
representative claim 1 based on the limited test results reported in the subject
Specification. For example claim 1 is not limited to compositions including
0.6 weight percent HF, 3 weight percent sulfuric acid, and the amounts of
carboxylic acids that the Example compositions of Table 1 of the
Specification are limited to. Nor does claim 1 limit the functional limitation
to any particular damascene process and any particular low-k interlayer
dielectric film formed thereby, as well as the cleaning conditions set forth in
Table 2 of the Specification.
Consequently, Appellants' argument and Specification evidence lacks
merit in showing harmful error in the Examiner's obviousness rejections for
reasons set forth above and by the Examiner in the Final Rejection and the
Answer.
It follows that we shall affirm the stated rejections.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner's decision to reject the appealed claims is affirmed.
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Appeal2014-009866
Application 13/040,558
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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