Ex Parte CHOU et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 16, 2017

13460884 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 16, 2017)

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.
2011.1453/1085.971 5899
EXAMINER
ZERVIGON, RUDY
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1716
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
13/460,884 05/01/2012
54657 7590 11/17/2017
DUANE MORRIS LLP (TSMC)
IP DEPARTMENT
30 SOUTH 17TH STREET
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19103-4196
You-Hua CHOU
11/17/2017 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 YOU-HUA CHOU, CHIH-TSUNG LEE,
SHU-FEN WU, and CHIN-HSIANG LIN
Appeal 2016-006830
Application 13/460,884
Technology Center 1700
Before BRADLEY R. GARRIS, KAREN M. HASTINGS, and
JEFFREY R. SNAY, Administrative Patent Judges.
HASTINGS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants1 request our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the
Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—3, 5—7, 9-15, and 21—30 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over at least the combined prior art of
Tanaka (US 6,422,172 Bl, issued July 23, 2002) and Arami (US 5,958,140,
issued Sept. 28, 1999).2 We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM-IN-PART.
1 The Real Party in Interest is stated to be Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Company, Ltd. (Appeal Br. 2).
2 Shoda (US 6,406,545 B2, issued June 18, 2002) was additionally applied
to dependent claims 9, 22, and 24 (Ans. 16); Nowak (US 5,865,896, issued
Feb. 2, 1999) was additionally added to claims 6, 14, 15, and 21 (Ans. 11).
Appeal 2016-006830
Application 13/460,884
Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. An apparatus comprising:
a process chamber having a substrate support configured
for supporting a substrate;
at least two gas distribution showerheads comprising a
first and a second gas distribution showerheads disposed in the
chamber, the first gas distribution showerhead being fluidly
coupled to a process gas supply system and operable to
dispense the process gas into the chamber in a first zone above
the substrate, the second gas distribution showerhead being
fluidly coupled to the process gas supply system and operable
to dispense the process gas into the chamber in a second zone
above the substrate, the second zone being different than the
first zone, wherein each of the first and second gas distribution
showerheads includes at least two pluralities of gas injection
nozzles extending through a nozzle plate in each gas
distribution showerhead, the first gas distribution showerhead
comprises a first plurality of gas injection nozzles with a first
radius and a second plurality of gas injection nozzles with a
second radius, the first and the second radii are different from
each other, the second gas distribution showerhead comprises a
third plurality of gas injection nozzles with a third radius and a
fourth plurality of gas injection nozzles with a fourth radius, the
third and the fourth radii are different from each other, each of
the first and the second radii is smaller than each of the third
and the fourth radii, each of the first, the second, the third and
the fourth radii is a position with respect to the center of the
respective gas distribution showerhead locating a respective
plurality of gas injection nozzles, and is greater than zero;
and
a gas excitation power system conductively coupled to
the process chamber, the power system being operable to excite
the process gas and generate at least two plasma fields above
the substrate comprising a first plasma field in the first zone and
a second plasma field in the second zone, wherein the power
system includes a first power source conductively coupled to
the first gas distribution showerhead and a second power source
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Appeal 2016-006830
Application 13/460,884
conductively coupled to the second gas distribution
showerhead.
Independent claims 14 and 25 are also directed to respective apparatus
comprising at least two gas distribution showerheads similar to claim 1
(Claims App’x).
Appellants’ arguments are directed to the rejection of the group of
claims that include independent claims 1 and 25, and focus on claim 1
(Appeal Br. 714), but also include additional argument relating to dependent
claim 30 (Appeal Br. 15, 16). Appellants’ arguments directed to separately
rejected claims 6, 14, 15, and 21 rely upon the same arguments present for
claim 1 (App. Br. 17, 18). Appellants present additional arguments to the
rejection of claims 9, 22, and 24 (Appeal Br. 20, 21).
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed each of Appellants’ arguments for patentability.
We are in agreement with the Examiner that the claimed subject matter of
independent claims 1, 14, and 25, and dependent claim 30 (as well as the not
separately argued dependent claims) is unpatentable under § 103 in view of
the applied prior art. However, a preponderance of the evidence supports
Appellants’ position that the Examiner’s rejection based on the combination
of Shoda with Tanaka/Arami does not result in the subject matter of claims
9, 22, and 24 (Appeal Br. 20, 21).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s prior art rejections of claims
1—3, 5—7, 10—15, 21, 23, and 25—30 for the reasons explained in the Answer,
but reverse the rejection of claims 9, 22, and 24.
We add the following primarily for emphasis.
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Appeal 2016-006830
Application 13/460,884
In assessing whether a claim to a combination of prior art elements
would have been obvious, the question to be asked is whether the
improvement of the claim is more than the predictable use of prior art
elements or steps according to their established functions. KSR Int’l Co. v.
Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007). “[T]he analysis need not seek out
precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged
claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a
person of ordinary skill in the art would employ.” Id. at 418.
It is also well settled that a reference stands for all of the specific
teachings thereof as well as the inferences one of ordinary skill in the art
would have reasonably been expected to draw therefrom. See In re Frit eh,
972 F.2d 1260, 1264—65 (Fed. Cir. 1992); see also In re Merck & Co., 800
F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (“Non-obviousness cannot be established
by attacking references individually where the rejection is based upon the
teachings of a combination of references.”); In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425—
26 (CCPA 1981) (“The test for obviousness ... is what the combined
teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill
in the art.”).
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments that there is no
reason to combine Arami with Tanaka, or that the combination fails to
suggest the features claimed (e.g., App. Br. 7, 10-14). First, Appellants’
argument that Arami does not explicitly mention plasma generation (Appeal
Br. 14) is not persuasive of error in the rejection, since a preponderance of
the evidence supports the Examiner’s determination that Arami and Tanaka
are both in the same field of endeavor of depositing a film on a wafer
substrate via vapor gas distribution/deposition (Ans. 23). Second,
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Appeal 2016-006830
Application 13/460,884
Appellants’ arguments do not fully consider the applied prior art and the
inferences one of ordinary skill in the art would have appreciated therefrom.
As pointed out by the Examiner, one of ordinary skill would have readily
inferred from the applied prior art of Tanaka and Arami that the gas
distribution showerheads of Tanaka may include multiple rows of gas
distribution nozzles placed at increasing radial distances from a center point
for the purpose of achieving high in-plane uniformity of the deposited film
thickness via the gas distribution (e.g., Ans. 10)3. A preponderance of the
evidence also supports the Examiner’s determination that one of ordinary
skill would have used any appropriate number of nozzles for achieving gas
distribution that results in a uniform thickness of the film deposition,
including more than four in each radially spaced row/location as recited in
dependent claim 30 (e.g., Ans. 10; Appeal Br. 15).
On this record, Appellants have not provided persuasive reasoning or
credible evidence why one of ordinary skill in the art would not have, using
no more than ordinary creativity, predictably used multiple rows of gas
injection nozzles extending outwards from a center of the respective gas
distribution showerheads, in order to obtain the known benefits of gas
distribution to enable high in-plane uniformity of the film thickness being
deposited (see generally Ans.; see generally Appeal Br.). See KSR, 550 U.S.
at 421 (“A person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not
3 While Appellants contend that the Examiner misstated that claim 1 does
not define any origin from where the claimed radii are measured (Reply Br.
3); nonetheless, the Examiner also stated that he uses the geometric center as
the “assumed” origin (e.g., Ans. 21). Thus, to the extent that Appellants are
correct that claim 1 requires measurement of the radii from the center of the
gas distribution showerhead, the Examiner’s misstatement is harmless error.
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Application 13/460,884
an automaton”); Ball Aerosol & Specialty Container, Inc. v. Limited Brands,
Inc., 555 F.3d 984, 993 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (Under the flexible inquiry set forth
by the Supreme Court, the PTO must take account of the “inferences and
creative steps,” as well as routine steps, that an ordinary artisan would
employ).
However, we are constrained to reverse the rejection of claims 9, 22,
and 24, which each recite the use of a DC power source for the “gas
excitation power system” that generates the plasma fields via the gas
distribution showerheads of claim 1 or claim 14. The Examiner relies solely
upon Shoda to exemplify that a DC power source may be used to chuck/hold
a wafer by electrostatic forces during processing (Ans. 16). However, as
pointed out by Appellants, Shoda uses the DC power source connected to a
chuck to hold the wafer onto the substrate, and the Examiner does not refute
or address Appellants’ position that DC power to electrostatically hold a
wafer is not capable of ionizing molecules to generate plasma (Appeal Br.
20, 21). The Examiner has provided no reasoning why one of ordinary skill
in the art would have used a DC power source conductively coupled to the
gas distribution showerheads of Tanaka/Arami (as required by claim 9 via
claim 1), or as a power source for the gas excitation power system to
generate plasma fields as recited in claims 1 and 14 (as required by
respective claims 22 and 24). Thus, we are constrained to reverse the
rejection of claims 9, 22, and 24.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s § 103 rejections of claims 1—3, 5—7, 10—15,
21,23, and 25-30.
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Application 13/460,884
We reverse the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of claims 9, 22, and 24.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136.
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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