Ex Parte Xu et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Feb 2, 2011

11068174 (B.P.A.I. Feb. 2, 2011)

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.
11/068,174 02/28/2005 Frank Y. Xu P207N198I194 7141
25108 7590 02/02/2011
MOLECULAR IMPRINTS
PO BOX 81536
AUSTIN, TX 78708-1536
EXAMINER
DANIELS, MATTHEW J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1741
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/02/2011 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 BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
________________

Ex parte FRANK Y. XU and MICHAEL N. MILLER
________________

Appeal 2010-003258
Application 11/068,174
Technology Center 1700
________________

Before TERRY J. OWENS, PETER F. KRATZ, and
CATHERINE Q. TIMM, Administrative Patent Judges.

OWENS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1-22, 25, and 27-31, which are all of the pending claims.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or for filing a request for rehearing,
as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 41.52, begins to run from the “MAIL DATE”
(paper delivery mode) or the “NOTIFICATION DATE” (electronic delivery
mode) shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this decision.
Appeal 2010-003258
Application 11/068,174

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The Invention
The Appellants claim a method for reducing adhesion forces between
a substrate and a mold. Claim 1 is illustrative:

1. A method of reducing adhesion forces between a substrate and a mold,
said method comprising:

locating an imprinting material between said mold and said substrate,
wherein said imprinting material comprises a surfactant component and bulk
material, and said imprinting material has a surfactant-component-rich sub-
portion and a surfactant-component-depleted sub-portion located between said
surfactant-component-rich sub-portion and said substrate;

contacting the imprinting material with the mold;

solidifying the imprinting material between the mold and the substrate
while the mold does not have an a priori release layer ; and

separating the mold from the solidified imprinting material such that the
solidified imprinting material remains adhered to the substrate.

The References
Shirakawa 5,629,128 May 13, 1997

T. Bailey et al. (Bailey), “Step and flash imprint lithography: Template
surface treatment and defect analysis”, 18 J. Vac. Sci. Tech. 3572-77
(Nov./Dec. 2000).

Matthew Earl Colburn, “Step and Flash Imprint Lithography: A
Low-Pressure, Room-Temperature Nanoimprint Lithography”, Dissertation,
The University of Texas at Austin (Aug. 2001).

M. Bender et al. (Bender), “Multiple imprinting in UV-based nanoimprint
lithography: related material issues”, 61-62 Microelectronic Eng. 407-13
(2002).
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Masanori Komuro et al. (Komuro), “Improvement of Imprinted Pattern
Uniformity Using Sapphire Mold”, 41 Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 4182-85
(Jun. 2002).

The Rejections
The claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as follows: claims 1,
4-10, 13, 14, 21, 25, 28, and 30 over Komuro in view of Bender,2 claims 2
and 11 over Komuro in view of Bender and Bailey, claims 3, 12, and 29
over Komuro in view of Bender and Colburn,3 claims 15, 16, 18-20, 22, 27,
and 31 over Komuro in view of Bender and Shirakawa, and claim 17 over
Komuro in view of Bender, Shirakawa, and Colburn.
OPINION
We affirm the rejections.
Issue
Have the Appellants indicated reversible error in the Examiner’s
determination that the applied prior art would have rendered prima facie
obvious, to one of ordinary skill in the art, 1) solidifying, between an a priori
release layer-free mold and a substrate, an imprinting material having a
surfactant-component-rich sub-portion and, between the surfactant-
component-rich sub-portion and the substrate, a surfactant-component-
depleted sub-portion (claims 1, 4-10, 13, 14, 21, 25, 28, and 30), 2) a
surfactant component having a fluorine component and being oriented so
that the fluorine component extends from an air-liquid interface of the

2 Claims 21 and 28 do not appear in the Examiner’s statement of the
rejection (Ans. 4) but are included in the Examiner’s discussion of the
rejection (Ans. 5) and the Appellants’ statement of the rejection (Br. 3).
3 Claim 23 appears in the Examiner’s statement of the rejection (Ans. 9) but
has been canceled.
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impregnating material (claims 2 and 11), or 3) depositing the imprinting
material as a plurality of droplets onto the substrate (claims 3, 12, and 29)?4
Findings of Fact
Komuro discloses that in photosolidified imprint lithography a
sapphire mold has advantages such as large Young’s modulus, Knoop
hardness and ultimate compressive and tensile forces compared to a quartz
mold (abstract). Komuro states that “[w]hen we use a quartz plate, a
chemical treatment to reduce the surface free energy of quartz is necessary”
(p. 4182). Komuro exemplifies treatment of the quartz plate with
chlorinated-fluoroalkylmethylsiloxane (Fig. 3).
Bender uses, in combination with a UV-based nanoimprint
lithography quartz mold having an anti-adhesion layer thereon, a resist
which is modified with a fluorine-based additive which migrates to the
surface during a spin-on process, thereby creating a low surface energy
(abstract). The exemplified fluorine based additives are 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-
perfluorooctyl-triethoxysilane and tridecafluoro-1,1,2,2-tetrahydrooctyl-
trichlorosilane (pp. 408-09). “Using the combination of these two
modifications, multiple imprints (up to 50 times) with one mold were
performed without cleaning the mold” (p. 412).
Bailey discloses step and flash imprint lithography quartz templates
“treated with a low surface energy, self-assembled monolayer to ensure
selective release at the template-etch barrier interface” (abstract). A
fluorinated self-assembled monolayer “is oriented such that the fluoroalkane

4 Although an additional reference (Shirakawa) is applied in the rejection of
claims 15-20, 22, 27, and 31, the Appellants do not present a substantive
argument as to the separate patentability of those claims (Br. 13-14).
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chains are oriented away from the quartz, in a three-dimensional comb-like
structure” (p. 3574, Fig. 3).
Colburn discloses that resist can be applied by spincoating or droplet-
compression (p. 43).
Analysis
The Appellants argue that both Komuro and Bender teach that an
a priori release layer is necessary on a quartz mold and that, therefore, one of
ordinary skill in the art would not have used Bender’s fluorine-based
additive-modified resist without the a priori release layer (Br. 9).
Generally, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to eliminate a step, such as Bender’s anti-adhesion layer
formation step, along with its disclosed function. See In re Wilson, 377 F.2d
1014, 1017 (CCPA 1967); In re Larson, 340 F.2d 965, 969 (CCPA 1965); In
re Brown, 228 F.2d 247, 249 (CCPA 1955). Bender indicates that both the
anti-adhesion layer and the resist modification contribute to reducing the
adhesion forces at the mold/resist interface (abstract). Hence, one of
ordinary skill in the art would have been led by Bender, through no more
than ordinary creativity, to use the anti-adhesion layer and the resist
modification in combination to obtain their combined effect, or to use either
one of them alone to provide its individual effect. See KSR Int’l. Co. v.
Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) (In making an obviousness
determination one “can take account of the inferences and creative steps that
a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ”).
The Appellants argue that “[t]he instant claim, however, describe a
method of achieving excellent results with a surfactant-containing resist in
the absence of an a priori release layer on the mold” (Reply Br. 2).
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That argument is not well taken because the Appellants have not
provided a side-by-side comparison of the claimed invention with the closest
prior art which is commensurate in scope with the claims, and shown that
results are obtained which would have been unexpected by one of ordinary
skill in the art, e.g., that the use of the Appellants’ surfactant in the absence
of an a priori release layer provides a number of imprints which is equal to
or greater than the number obtained using Bender’s combination of an anti-
adhesion layer and a fluorine-based additive-modified resist (p. 412). See In
re Baxter Travenol Labs., 952 F.2d 388, 392 (Fed. Cir. 1991); In re De
Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705 (Fed. Cir. 1984); In re Grasselli, 713 F.2d 731,
743 (Fed. Cir. 1983); In re Clemens, 622 F.2d 1029, 1035 (CCPA 1980); In
re Freeman, 474 F.2d 1318, 1324 (CCPA 1973); In re Klosak, 455 F.2d
1077, 1080 (CCPA 1972).5
The Appellants argue regarding claims 2 and 11 that “[t]he orientation
of the fluoroalkane chains on the template of Bailey cannot simply be
equated to the orientation of the fluorine component of a surfactant in a
liquid imprinting material, without regard to the nature of the substrate and
the nature of the imprinting material” (Br. 10-12).
The Appellants, however, provide no evidence or technical reasoning
in support of that argument. Bender and Bailey both use imprint resists,
which are the type of resist used by the Appellants, and add to the resists
fluorinated silane-based additives, which are a type of surfactant used by the
Appellants (Spec. ¶¶ 0023-24, 0046-62). Moreover, Bender teaches that the
fluorine-based additive migrates to the resist surface during the spin-on

5 The Appellants mention declarations by Frank Y. Xu (Br. 9), but do not
provide a substantive argument with respect to them.
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process (abstract), and Bailey teaches that the fluoroalkane chains are
oriented away from the surface (Fig. 3), both of which appear to provide the
orientation of the fluorine component extending from the air-liquid interface
required by the Appellants’ claim 2.
The Appellants argue with respect to claims 3, 12, and 29 that
Colburn states that “[t]he application of the etch barrier by droplet-
compression is quite different in nature from capillary fill or spin coating”
(Br. 11), and that the Examiner has “failed to identify the reason why a
person of ordinary skill in the art of the patent would have replaced the spin-
coating of Komuro and Bender V61-62 with the multiple droplet
compression of Colburn” (Br. 11-13).
The reason is that Colburn indicates that both spincoating and single
droplet compression are suitable techniques for applying a resist (p. 43).
Hence, one of ordinary skill in the art, through no more than ordinary
creativity, would have used either technique to apply the Bender’s
fluorine-based additive-modified resist. See KSR, 550 U.S. at 418.
Conclusion of Law
The Appellants have not indicated reversible error in the Examiner’s
determination that the applied prior art would have rendered prima facie
obvious, to one of ordinary skill in the art, 1) solidifying, between an a priori
release layer-free mold and a substrate, an imprinting material having a
surfactant-component-rich sub-portion and, between the surfactant-
component-rich sub-portion and the substrate, a surfactant-component-
depleted sub-portion (claims 1, 4-10, 13, 14, 21, 25, 28, and 30), 2) a
surfactant component having a fluorine component and being oriented so
that the fluorine component extends from an air-liquid interface of the
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impregnating material (claims 2 and 11), and 3) depositing the imprinting
material as a plurality of droplets onto the substrate (claims 3, 12, and 29).
DECISION/ORDER
The rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 of claims 1, 4-10, 13, 14, 21, 25,
28, and 30 over Komuro in view of Bender, claims 2 and 11 over Komuro in
view of Bender and Bailey, claims 3, 12, and 29 over Komuro in view of
Bender and Colburn, claims 15, 16, 18-20, 22, 27, and 31 over Komuro in
view of Bender and Shirakawa, and claim 17 over Komuro in view of
Bender, Shirakawa, and Colburn are affirmed.
It is ordered that the Examiner’s decision 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

sld

MOLECULAR IMPRINTS
PO BOX 81536
AUSTIN TX 78708-1536