Ex Parte Leung et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 16, 2017

12641545 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 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.
12/641,545 12/18/2009 Andrew K.W. Leung AMDI: 221 \HON 1809
16501 7590
Timothy M. Honeycutt
Attorney at Law
37713 Parkway Oaks Ln.
Magnolia, TX 77355
EXAMINER
NG, SHERMAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2847
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/20/2017 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):
timhoney @ sprynet.com
timhoneycutt @ earthlink.net
elizabethahoneycutt @ earthlink.net
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ANDREW K.W. LEUNG, NEIL MCLELLAN,
and YIP SENG LOW
Appeal 2016-001079
Application 12/641,545
Technology Center 2800
Before TERRY J. OWENS, MICHAEL P. COLAIANNI, and LILAN REN,
Administrative Patent Judges.
OWENS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1—3, 5—16 and 18—20. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
The Invention
The Appellants’ claimed invention is directed toward via-containing
circuit boards and methods for making them (Spec. 11). Claim 1 is
illustrative:
1. A method of manufacturing, comprising:
forming a first interconnect layer of a circuit board by
forming a first conductor trace with a first segment that does
not include a via land, a second conductor trace with a second
Appeal 2016-001079
Application 12/641,545
segment that does not include a via land, third and fourth
conductor traces in spaced apart relation and in between the
first and second segments and an insulating layer over the first,
second, third and fourth conductor traces; and
forming a first via on the first segment and a second via
on the second segment but without forming a third via between
the first and second vias.
Ehrenberg
Takayama
Appelt
Boggs
Lee
The References
US 5,199,163
US 5,877,559
US 2003/0006066 A1
US 7,084,354 B2
US 2009/0255722 A1
The Rejections
Apr. 6, 1993
Mar. 2, 1999
Jan. 9, 2003
Aug. 1, 2006
Oct. 15,2009
The claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as follows: claims 1,
6 and 8 over the Appellants’ admitted prior art (AAPA) in view of Appelt,
claims 2 and 3 over AAPA in view of Appelt and Ehrenberg, claim 5 over
AAPA in view of Appelt and Takayama, claim 7 over AAPA in view of
Appelt and Boggs, claims 9-13 over AAPA in view of Appelt, Lee and
Boggs, claims 14, 19 and 20 over AAPA in view of Appelt and Lee,
claims 15 and 16 over AAPA in view of Appelt, Lee and Ehrenberg and
claim 18 over AAPA in view of Appelt, Lee and Takayama.
OPINION
We affirm the rejections.
The Appellants argue the claims in three groups: 1) claims 1 and 5—8,
2) claims 2 and 3, and 3) claim 9—16 and 18—20 (Br. 20-27). Although
additional references are applied to some of the dependent claims, the
Appellants do not provide a substantive argument for the separate
patentability of those claims (Br. 25, 27). We therefore limit our discussion
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Application 12/641,545
to one claim in each group, i.e., claims 1, 2 and 9. Other claims in each
group stand or fall with the claim we address. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2012).
Claim 1
The Appellants form first (420) and second (425) conductor traces
that do not include a via land (e.g., 427) (Fig. 3). Due to the absence of the
lands there is space between the first (420) and second (425) conductor
traces for two conductor traces (510, 515), whereas if at least one of the
first (420) and second (425) conductor traces included a via land (e.g., 427),
there would be sufficient space between them for only one conductor trace
(e.g., 517, 520) without increasing the bump pitch (xi) between the solder
joints (330, 335) above the first (420) and second (425) conductor traces
(Spec. 1138, 39; Figs. 3, 4).
AAPA is a method for making a circuit board having a single
conductor trace (210) between two via lands (120, 125) (Spec. 131; Fig. 2).
Appelt discloses:
[T]he prior art process of plating through holes requires the
land or pad on the lateral surface of the communing layer to
connect in a dog-bone configuration to the plated through holes.
The land utilizes valuable space on the lateral surface that could
otherwise be used for circuitry. Consequently, there has been a
long standing desire to eliminate the need for such lands or
pads. [1 8]
It is yet another object of the invention to reduce the
registration budget by providing landless vias, having
eliminated the concern for hole breakout. [129]
The primary feature of the invention is to provide a
conductive material that can be used to fill through holes or vias
to Z-connect two or more layers of circuitry or conductor runs.
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Application 12/641,545
The vias may optionally be plated with a conductive material;
however, in one preferred aspect of the invention this is not
required. [134]
The Appellants argue that one of ordinary skill in the art would not
have combined Appelt with AAPA because AAPA is a buildup process
using plated vias whereas Appelt’s process is a laminate process which, as
indicated by Appelt’s statements that “it is an object of the current invention
to provide a high density (low pitch) fine line circuitry printed wiring board
structure without the need for plating through holes” (123) and “[i]t is
another object of the invention to provide a high density (low pitch) fine line
circuitry printed wiring board having multiple layers of circuitry
interconnected with filled conductive through holes or blind holes” (| 24), is
designed to eliminate plating for through holes or fine pitch circuitry wiring
(Br. 22-23).
None of Appelt’s disclosures relied upon by the Appellants indicates
that use of landless vias requires non-plated through holes. Appelt discloses
that plated through holes, though not preferred, are optional (^flf 34, 49), and
Appelt is not limited to its preferred embodiments. See In re Kohler, 475
F.2d 651, 653 (CCPA 1973); In re Mills, 470 F.2d 649, 651 (CCPA 1972);
In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385, 1390 (CCPA 1969). Instead, all disclosures
therein must be evaluated for what they would have fairly suggested to one
of ordinary skill in the art, see In re Boe, 355 F.2d 961, 965 (CCPA 1966),
including the use of plated through holes.
The Appellants assert that “[i]t is not at all clear that the via produced
by the Appelt et al. process is even in the same interconnect layer as any
traces” (Br. 23).
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Application 12/641,545
That argument is deficient in that the Appellants are attacking Appelt
individually when the rejection is based on a prior art combination. See In
re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981); In re Young, 403 F.2d 754, 757-
58 (CCPA 1968). The Examiner relies upon AAPA for a disclosure of vias
and a trace in the same interconnect layer (Non-final Act 3—4).1
Claim 2
Claim 2 depends from claim 1 and requires “substantially filling the
first and second openings with conductive material.”
The Appellants assert that “AAPA is a buildup process/structure”
(Br. 24) whereas “[l]ike Appelt et al., Ehrenberg et al. favors a laminate
process” (id.) and “Ehrenberg et al. plainly criticizes buildup technology at
col. 1,11. 28-45” (id.). Thus, the Appellants argue, one of ordinary skill in
the art would not have combined AAPA with Ehrenberg (id.).
The portion of Ehrenberg relied upon by the Appellants points out
limitations of a buildup process, but the following portion points out
problems with a laminate process (col. 1,1. 46 — col. 2,1. 2). Ehrenberg,
therefore, would have led one of ordinary skill in the art, through no more
than ordinary creativity, to use either a buildup process or a laminate process
depending on the desired balance between their advantages and
disadvantages. See KSRInt’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”).
1 The non-final action cited herein is the non-final action mailed on
November 6, 2014.
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Claim 9
Independent claim 9 requires “positioning a first via on a first segment
of a first conductor trace in a first interconnect layer of the circuit board . . .
and a second via on a second segment of a second semiconductor trace in the
first interconnect layer . . . the first via being wider than the first segment
and the second via being wider than the second segment”.
The Appellants assert that “claim 9 recites, inter alia, ‘positioning a
first via on the first segment of a first conductor trace . . . and a second via
on a second segment of a second conductor trace . . . . ’ In contrast, the
Lee et al. process involves positioning a via 10 on a lower land 55 that is
wider than the via 10 and thereafter positioning a circuit pattern 30 on the
via 10” (Br. 26).
The Examiner relies upon Lee’s circuit patterns (30) (1 30; Fig. 3A) as
corresponding to the Appellants’ conductor trace segments and relies upon
Lee’s vias (10) (id.) as corresponding to the Appellants’ vias on the
conductor trace segments (Non-final Act. 11; Ans. 6). Those vias (10) are
wider than the conductive trace segments (30) (Fig. 3 A) as required by the
Appellants’ claim 9.
For the above reasons we are not persuaded of reversible error in the
rejections.
DECISION/ORDER
The rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 of claims 1, 6 and 8 over the
Appellants’ admitted prior art (AAPA) in view of Appelt, claims 2 and 3
over AAPA in view of Appelt and Ehrenberg, claim 5 over AAPA in view
of Appelt and Takayama, claim 7 over AAPA in view of Appelt and Boggs,
claims 9-13 over AAPA in view of Appelt, Lee and Boggs, claims 14, 19
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and 20 over AAPA in view of Appelt and Lee, claims 15 and 16 over AAPA
in view of Appelt, Lee and Ehrenberg and claim 18 over AAPA in view of
Appelt, Lee and Takayama 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
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