Ex Parte Park et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 20, 201613156323 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 20, 2016) Copy Citation 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. 13/156,323 06/08/2011 Allen Park 5222-23500/P3559 4832 61507 7590 Entropy Matters LLC P.O. Box 2250 NEW YORK, NY 10021 12/21/2016 EXAMINER SATANOVSKY, ALEXANDER ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2857 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/21/2016 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 ALLEN PARK, ELLIS CHANG, PRASHANT A. AJI, and STEVEN R. LANGE Appeal 2015-003247 Application 13/156,323 Technology Center 2800 Before JEFFREY T. SMITH, JAMES C. HOUSEL, and JEFFREY R. SNAY, Administrative Patent Judges. SNAY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 Appellants2 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—25. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 We cite to the Specification (“Spec.”) filed Jun. 8, 2011; Final Office Action (“Final Act.”) dated Sep. 26, 2013; Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”); and Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”). 2 Appellants identify KLA-Tencor Corp. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2015-003247 Application 13/156,323 BACKGROUND The subject matter on appeal relates to the use of three-dimensional representations for defect-related applications, particularly, inspection processes in connection with semiconductor manufacturing. Spec. 1. Claim 1 is illustrative and is reproduced below from the Claims Appendix to the Appeal Brief as follows: 1. A computer-implemented method for determining one or more inspection parameters for a wafer inspection recipe, comprising: generating a three-dimensional representation of one or more layers of a wafer based on design data; and determining one or more inspection parameters for a wafer inspection recipe based on the three-dimensional representation, wherein said generating and said determining are performed by a computer system. REJECTIONS The Examiner maintained the following grounds of rejection:3 I. Claims 1—6, 8—14, 20, 21, 23, and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Park4 and Marella.5 II. Claim 7 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Park, Marella and Worster.6 3 Final Act. 2—20; Ans. 3. 4 US 8,194,968 B2, issued Jun. 5, 2012 (“Park”). 5 US 2008/0081385 Al, published Apr. 3, 2008 (“Marella”). 6 US 7,154,605 B2, issued Dec. 26, 2006 (“Worster”). 2 Appeal 2015-003247 Application 13/156,323 III. Claims 15—19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Park, Marella, and Chen.7 IV. Claim 22 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Park, Marella, and Bell.8 V. Claim 25 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Park, Marella, and Bomholt.9 OPINION I With regard to Rejection I, Appellants argue the claims as a group except for claim 6 which is argued separately. See App. Br. 3—10; Reply Br. 2—5. We, therefore, limit our discussion to representative claim 1, and decide the propriety of Rejection I as to claims 1—5, 8—14, 20, 21, 23, and 24 based on the representative claim alone. Separately argued claim 6 is separately addressed. 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. Claims 1—5, 8—14, 20, 21, 23, and 24. As is relevant to Appellants’ arguments on appeal, the Examiner found that Park discloses a computer-implemented method for determining 7 US 8,139,844 B2, issued Mar. 20, 2012 (“Chen”). 8 US 2007/0179740 Al, published Aug. 2, 2007 (“Bell”). 9 US 7,792,595 Bl, issued Sep. 7, 2010 (“Bomholt”). 3 Appeal 2015-003247 Application 13/156,323 one or more inspection parameters for a wafer inspection recipe. Final Act. 2. For Example, the Examiner found that Park teaches determining electrical information relating to a wafer using wafer design data, including three dimensional wafer structure information, to identify critical hot spots or locations where defects are most likely to occur. Id. at 3; Ans. 3^4. See Park 7:20—24 (“[T]he method includes generating the electrical information by processing design data for the device, the design data includes physical layout information, three-dimensional structure information, netlist information, or some combination thereof.”); 7:35—39 (“[T]he method includes generating the electrical information using design data for the device to determine locations of the most critical areas of the device in terms of electrical performance and storing the locations in a storage medium accessible by a review tool.”). Based on those findings, the Examiner viewed Park as disclosing the second step recited in claim 1—determining one or more inspection parameters for a wafer inspection recipe based on a three-dimensional representation—but failing to explicitly disclose generating the noted three-dimensional representation. Final Act. 3; Ans. 4. For that, the Examiner relied upon Marella’s teaching of using wafer design data for “generating maps of critical portions of the wafer and three- dimensional representations of the critical multi-layer areas” to improve efficiency in a computer-implemented wafer inspection process. Final Act. 4; Marella 117 (“[T]he method may include identifying the criticality of a defect on the wafer based on criticality of the critical portion in which the defect is located and data representative of at least one layer of the wafer above or below the one level.”); id. at 198 (“[T]he method may include 4 Appeal 2015-003247 Application 13/156,323 generating and displaying a three-dimensional composite of design layers next to the image of the defect under review.”). Appellants argue that Park’s only teaching of using design data to create an inspection recipe occurs through an incorporation by reference of U.S. Application Serial Number 60/870,724, which Appellants characterize as not specifying use of three-dimensional information. App. Br. 4; Reply Br. 2—3. Appellants’ argument is not supported by the evidence of record, particularly given that Park explicitly teaches—apart from any incorporation by reference to another application—the use of design data that includes “three-dimensional structure information.” Park 7:20—24. Appellants also argue that while Park teaches using design data to generate electrical information, it does not teach that the so-generated electrical information “includes” three-dimensional information. App. Br. 5. We find Appellants’ argument not to be commensurate in scope with claim 1 on appeal. Claim 1 recites, “determining one or more inspection parameters for a wafer inspection recipe based on the three-dimensional representation.” (Emphasis added). Appellants do not dispute that Park’s determination of electrical information is based on three-dimensional information, or that the electrical information is used to determine inspection parameters. See Reply Br. 2 (“Park discloses using three-dimensional structure information to generate electrical information and then using the electrical information to determine wafer inspection parameters.”). Appellants do not point us to any language in claim 1 that distinguishes the recited inspection parameters from Park’s electrical information, which admittedly is based on three- dimensional design information. 5 Appeal 2015-003247 Application 13/156,323 Appellants further argue that “Marella does not teach or suggest determining one or more inspection parameters for a wafer inspection recipe.” App. Br. 7. However, that argument fails to persuasively refute the Examiner’s articulated obviousness rationale which is based upon the combined teachings of Park and Marella. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981) (“[0]ne cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references individually where, as here, the rejections are based on combinations of references.”). Appellants do not persuade us of reversible error in the Examiner’s obviousness determination with regard to claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain Rejection I as applied to claims 1—5, 8—14, 20, 21, 23, and 24. Claim 6 With regard to claim 6, Appellants additionally argue that Park “does not disclose or suggest using information about the different materials on the wafer or information about variations in material properties to determine one or more inspection parameters for a wafer inspection recipe.” App. Br. 9. Particularly, Appellants contend that Park uses material information “to determine RC10 variation of a device.” Id. (citing Park 15:2—14). Appellants’ argument is not persuasive of reversible error. Park identifies defect-related modeling of RC variation as one type of electrical information used for wafer inspection, and that the RC variation may be based upon design data including critical path information, size and location of defects in three dimensions, and “thicknesses and variations in material properties (e.g., dielectric constant) across the entire device.” Park 15:2—16. 10 Resistance-capacitance. See Park 10:51. 6 Appeal 2015-003247 Application 13/156,323 Appellants fail to identify persuasive evidence or technical reasoning to demonstrate that the relied-upon teaching in Park does not constitute “information about one or more materials” as is recited in claim 6. Accordingly, we also sustain Rejection I as applied to claim 6. II-V Appellants do not present any particular argument in their Appeal Brief or Reply Brief against the Examiner’s separate rejections of claims 7, 15—19, 22, and 25, other than an implicit reliance on the arguments presented with regard to claim 1. See App. Br. 10-15; Reply Br., generally. We therefore sustain Rejections II-V for the same reasons set forth above with regard to Rejection I. DECISION/ORDER The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are 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 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation