Ex Parte Noguchi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 12, 2017

13159074 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 12, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/159,074 06/13/2011 Hitoshi NOGUCHI 149801 1734
759025944
OLIFF PLC
P.O. BOX 320850
ALEXANDRIA, VA 22320-4850
06/14/2017 EXAMINER
BRATLAND JR, KENNETH A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1714
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/14/2017 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):
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte HITOSHI NOGUCHI and SHOZO SHIRAI
Appeal 2015-006357
Application 13/159,074
Technology Center 1700
Before PETER F. KRATZ, JEFFREY T. SMITH, and
ELIZABETH M. ROESEL, Administrative Patent Judges.
SMITH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a final rejection of
claims 1—23. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6.
We REVERSE.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention, as represented by independent claim 1, is
directed to a single-crystal diamond growth base material on which single­
crystal diamond is grown. (Spec. 110). Claim 20 is drawn to a
corresponding method. Independent claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. A single-crystal diamond growth base material on
which single-crystal diamond is grown, comprising at least:
Appeal 2015-006357
Application 13/159,074
a base substrate consisting of a material having a linear
expansion coefficient smaller than that of MgO and not smaller
than 0.5x10'6/K;
a single-crystal MgO layer formed on a face of the base
substrate where the single-crystal diamond is grown by bonding
a single-crystal MgO substrate having a thickness of 200 to
1000 pm to the base substrate and thinning the single-crystal
MgO substrate by mechanical polishing; and
a film constituted of any one of an iridium film, a
rhodium film, and a platinum film heteroepitaxially grown on
the single-crystal MgO layer;
wherein bonding the single-crystal MgO substrate to the
base substrate is done through a bonding layer obtained by
forming on a bonding interface a film of an element or
compound selected from the group consisting of gold (Au),
platinum (Pt), titanium (Ti), chromium (Cr), iridium (Ir),
rhodium (Rh), silicon (Si), and silicon oxide (Si02), or a
laminated film formed of these films, the bonding layer having
a thickness of 0.001 to 1000 pm.
The Examiner maintains the following rejections:
Claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 9-11, 14, 15, and 18 are rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Izumi et al. (JP 2005-219962,
published Aug. 18, 2005 (hereinafter “Izumi”)) in view of Kubota et
al. (US 2009/0221131 Al, published Sept. 3, 2009 (hereinafter
“Kubota”)) and further in view of Letertre et al. (US
2004/0029359 Al, published Feb. 12,2004 (hereinafter “Letertre”)).
Claims 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, 13, 16, and 17 are rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Izumi, Kubota, Letertre, and
further in view of Gsell et al., A route to diamond wafers by epitaxial
deposition on silicon via iridium/yttria-stabilized zirconia buffer
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Application 13/159,074
layers, 84 Appl. Phys. Lett. No. 22, 4541—43 (2004) (hereinafter
“Gsell”).
Claims 20, 21, and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Izumi, Kubota, Letertre, and further in view of
Jones (US 5,114,745, issued May 19, 1992).
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Izumi, Kubota, Letertre and further in view of Noguchi (US
2013/0220214 Al, published Aug. 29, 2013, earliest U.S. filing date
Sept. 7, 2010).
Claim 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Izumi, Kubota, Letertre, Jones and further in view of Noguchi.
OPINION1
Upon consideration of the evidence in this appeal record in light of the
respective positions advanced by the Examiner and Appellants, we
determine that Appellants have identified reversible error in the Examiner’s
determination that the applied prior art would have rendered the subject
matter recited in claims 1—23 obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Accordingly, we reverse the
Examiner’s § 103(a) rejections of the above claims for the reasons set forth
in the Briefs. We add the following.
Appellants argue the Examiner’s rejection is improper because it
disregards Kubota’s teaching that monocrystalline diamond films having
1 We limit our discussion to independent claim 1 because the Examiner has
not articulated how the additional reference applied in the rejection of
independent claim 20 cures the deficiency in the base rejection and because
the separate rejection of claim 20 substantially parallels the base rejection
and, consequently, carries substantially the same deficiency. (Final Act. 10-
13; App. Br. 10).
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Application 13/159,074
very few defects can be formed without buffering layers, because Kubota
does not describe MgO among the monocrystalline films that may be
produced by its methods, because there would have been no motivation to
use Kubota’s method to produce a MgO layer and use this layer as a
buffering layer in Izumi’s method for producing a diamond layer, rather than
using Kubota’s method directly, and because a person of ordinary skill in the
art would have recognized that the Examiner’s proposed modification would
have resulted in more process steps, higher costs, and longer production
time, without improving the quality of the diamond film. (App. Br. 7—10).
The Examiner found Izumi teaches forming a single-crystal MgO
layer on a face of a base substrate.2 The Examiner found that “Izumi does
not explicitly teach that a single-crystal MgO layer is formed on a face of the
base substrate by bonding a single-crystal MgO substrate having a thickness
of 200 to 1,000 pm to the base substrate and thinning the single-crystal MgO
substrate by mechanical polishing.” (Final Act. 7). The Examiner found
Kubota teaches a process for forming a crystalline substrate including:
forming a monocrystalline layer having an initial thickness from 0.2 to 200
pm on a donor substrate, implanting ions to a depth of 0.1 to 100 pm to form
an ion-implanted layer, smoothing the monocrystalline layer by polishing
and annealing, bonding the monocrystalline layer to a handle substrate, and
then transferring monocrystalline layer to the handle substrate by peeling at
the ion-implanted layer. {Id. at 7). The Examiner concluded that, “based on
the teachings of Kubota, an ordinary artisan would readily recognize that an
epitaxial MgO layer may be formed on a face of the base substrate in the
2 A complete statement of the Examiner’s rejections appears in the Final
Action. (Final Act. 6—17).
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Application 13/159,074
process of Izumi by a bonding method analogous to that disclosed by
Kubota which includes, inter alia, a step of mechanically polishing a 0.2 to
200-pm-thick MgO layer before bonding to a handle substrate.” (Id. at 7—8).
According to the Examiner, the “motivation for doing so is to produce an
epitaxial MgO layer which is substantially free of crystal defects such as
dislocations that would otherwise be produced by heteroepitaxial growth.”
(Id. at 8).
Claims 1 and 20 each recite a single crystal MgO layer obtained by
thinning a single-crystal MgO substrate by mechanical polishing and an
iridium, rhodium, or platinum film heteroepitaxially grown on the single­
crystal MgO layer. (App. Br. A-l, A-4).
The Examiner has not provided a persuasive technical explanation for
why the bonding and transfer method of Kubota would have been suitable
for formation of the MgO buffering layer of the single-crystal diamond
growth base material of Izumi, which base material further includes an
iridium, rhodium, or platinum film heteroepitaxially grown on the single­
crystal MgO layer of Izumi, as the Examiner found to be taught by Izumi.
(Id. at 7). The Examiner also has not explained adequately how combining a
bonding and transfer method analogous to that disclosed by Kubota with the
method of Izumi would have resulted in the product and method recited in
the claims.
Kubota describes a process for producing monocrystalline films—
specifically silicon, SiC, GaN, AIN, zinc oxide, and diamond— that is the
final substrate used as part of a semiconductor device. (Kubota 14). As
argued by Appellants, Kubota discloses forming a diamond film by its
transfer method, but does not mention forming MgO monocrystalline film
by its method, much less teach or suggest a MgO buffer layer formation
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Application 13/159,074
method. (App. Br. 7—10). Izumi discloses the MgO layer is an intermediate
construct/product used for growing a diamond layer. (Izumi |16). The
single-crystal iridium layer is formed on the single-crystal MgO layer. {Id.
at 19). Izumi discloses that a diamond single crystal film is formed on the
single-crystal iridium layer. {Id.). After the diamond layer is formed, it is
separated from the intermediate construct to obtain a self-standing diamond
substrate as a final product that is free of MgO and the other intermediate
construct layers. The final diamond substrate product is what is used in the
semiconductor device.
Accordingly, we reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—
23 for the reasons presented by Appellants and given above.
ORDER
The Examiner’s prior art rejections of claims 1—23 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) are reversed.
REVERSED
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