Ex Parte Odnoblyudov et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 31, 2014

11792687 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 31, 2014)

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.
11/792,687 05/30/2008 Maxim Odnoblyudov OPTO 200005US01 5021
27885 7590 12/31/2014
FAY SHARPE LLP
1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor
The Halle Building
Cleveland, OH 44115
EXAMINER
SAHA, BIJAY S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1732
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/31/2014 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 MAXIM ODNOBLYUDOV, VLADISLAV
BOUGROV, ALEXEI ROMANOV
and TEEMU LANG
____________________

Appeal 2013-001587
Application 11/792,687
Technology Center 1700
____________________

Before CHARLES F. WARREN, JEFFREY T. SMITH, and
GEORGE C. BEST, Administrative Patent Judges.

SMITH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s
decision to reject claims 1 through 6. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).

Appeal 2013-001587
Application 11/792,687

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The claims are directed to a semiconductor substrate. App. Br. 3.
Claim 1 illustrates the subject matter on appeal and is reproduced below:

1. A semiconductor substrate (1) made of nitrides of
group III metals having wurtzite crystal structure and grown in
vapor phase either on a (0001) oriented foreign substrate (2),
lattice mismatched to the semiconductor substrate materials, or
on existing (0001) oriented highly dislocated layer (3) of the
semiconductor substrate materials, characterized in that the
semiconductor substrate (1) comprises:

a dislocation redirection layer (4), in which inclination of
threading dislocations (6) towards high index crystallographic
planes, having indexes other than (0001) and those of the type
{1100}, is arranged in order to enhance the probability of the
threading dislocations to meet each other; and

a dislocation reaction layer (5) positioned above said
dislocation redirection layer, in which the threading
dislocations (6) coalesce with each other resulting in reduced
threading dislocation density at the semiconductor substrate
surface (7).

The Examiner relied on the following references in rejecting the
appealed subject matter:
Ashby US 2002/0090816 Al July 11, 2002
Fujikura US 2003/0183160 Al Oct. 2, 2003
Roycroft WO 2004/008509 Al Jan. 22, 2004

Appellants (App. Br. 5) request review of the following rejection from
the Examiner’s Final Office Action:
Claims 1–6 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Ashby, Roycroft and Fujikura.

Appeal 2013-001587
Application 11/792,687

3
OPINION

Prior Art Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
After review of the respective positions provided by Appellants and
the Examiner, we REVERSE.
We refer to the Examiner’s Final Office Action for a complete
statement of the rejection. Final Act. 3–6.
The Examiner bears the burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness. In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532 (Fed. Cir. 1993). The
Examiner must first interpret a claim before the claim can be compared to
the prior art. During patent prosecution, claim terms are given their broadest
reasonable interpretation, consistent with the specification, as they would be
understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Buszard, 504 F.3d 1364,
1367 (Fed. Cir. 2007); In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359,
1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
Both independent claims 1 and 4 require “a dislocation redirection
layer (4), in which inclination of threading dislocations (6) towards high
index crystallographic planes, having indexes other than (0001) and those of
the type {1100}, . . . to enhance the probability of the threading dislocations
to meet each other.” Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a
semiconductor substrate made of nitrides of group III metals having wurtzite
crystal structure where the dislocation redirection layer inclines vertical
threading dislocations in a manner that subsequently minimizes the vertical
threading dislocations in a subsequent layer where the redirected vertical
threading dislocations would meet each other. App. Br. 3–4; Spec. 6–8.
According to Appellants, the dislocation redirection layer is grown on a
foreign substrate or an existing highly dislocated layer to provide intentional
Appeal 2013-001587
Application 11/792,687

4
inclination of vertical threading dislocations towards high index
crystallographic planes having crystallographic indexes other than (0001)
and those of the type {1100}. Spec. 8, 10.
In the Answer, the Examiner states that the Specification does not
specifically teach the indexes of the dislocation redirection layer but only
teaches high index crystallographic planes. Ans. 4. According to the
Examiner, the Specification does not define what high index
crystallographic planes are. Id. Thus, the Examiner acknowledges not
knowing what the language of the claims mean. At the same time, the
Examiner has failed to establish a reasonable interpretation of the claims on
appeal.
Despite the lack of an interpretation of the claims, the Examiner
asserted that Ashby’s middle layer meets the claimed dislocation redirection
layer because the redirection crystallographic planes parallel to [1120] in
Ashby’s semiconductor substrate are high index crystallographic planes
which would be expected to enhance the probability of threading
dislocations meeting each other. Final Act. 3; Ashby ¶¶ 23, 27, 30, 31.
These circumstances lead us to determine that the Examiner’s assertion is
erroneous because it is not based on any reasonable interpretation of
Appellants’ claims. Thus, the Examiner has not established a prima facie
case of obviousness in the first instance.
For this reason, we cannot sustain the Examiner’s prior art rejection of
claims 1–6 for the reasons given above.

Appeal 2013-001587
Application 11/792,687

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ORDER
The Examiner’s prior art rejection of claims 1–6 under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) is reversed.

REVERSED

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