Applied Materials Inc v. Demaray LLC

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2021-00104
• Patent #: 7,381,657
• Filed: October 23, 2020
• Petitioner(s): Applied Materials, Inc.
• Patent Owner(s): Demaray LLC
• Challenged Claims: 1-21

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Method and Apparatus for Sputtering an Insulating Film
• Brief Description: The ’657 patent discloses a method for depositing insulating films onto a substrate using a plasma sputtering reactor. The system uses a pulsed-DC power supply coupled to a sputtering target through a narrow band-rejection filter and a separate RF power supply to bias the substrate.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Barber and Hirose - Claims 2-4, 6, 8, 10-12, and 21 are obvious over Barber in view of Hirose.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Barber (Patent 6,342,134) and Hirose (Patent 6,485,602).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Barber taught the core method of claim 2, including depositing an insulating film (e.g., aluminum nitride) using a sputtering chamber with a pulsed-DC power supply connected to a target and an RF power supply providing a bias to the substrate. Barber’s pulsed-DC supply was argued to inherently provide alternating positive and negative voltages to the target to enable sputtering of an insulator. However, Barber did not explicitly teach using a narrow band-rejection filter between the DC supply and the target. Hirose was asserted to remedy this deficiency by teaching a plasma processing apparatus with two different-frequency power supplies that uses tunable band-rejection filters to prevent high-frequency current from one supply from interfering with the other.
  • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Hirose's filter with Barber's sputtering system to solve the known problem of RF interference damaging the DC power supply. Petitioner noted that manuals for commercial DC power supplies, like those used in Barber, explicitly warned of this danger and recommended using an RF filter when operating in conjunction with an RF supply. The combination would improve system stability and prevent equipment damage, providing a strong motivation for its implementation.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success, as the combination involved integrating a known filter solution (from Hirose) into a standard sputtering setup (from Barber) to solve a well-documented problem, yielding predictable and beneficial results.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Barber, Hirose, and Sellers - Claim 1 is obvious over Barber in view of Hirose and Sellers.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Barber (Patent 6,342,134), Hirose (Patent 6,485,602), and Sellers (Patent 5,651,865).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the Barber/Hirose combination to address the "reconditioning the target" limitation in independent claim 1. While the Barber/Hirose combination taught the other elements of claim 1 (depositing a film on an insulating substrate, providing pulsed-DC power through a filter, etc.), it did not explicitly teach a reconditioning step. Sellers was argued to disclose a target "conditioning" process using pulsed-DC sputtering to sputter off oxides and other impurities from a target surface after it has been exposed to the atmosphere, thereby cleaning it for subsequent depositions.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would have been motivated to incorporate the conditioning process of Sellers into the Barber/Hirose system as a routine and necessary "burn-in" step. After multiple depositions, a sputtering chamber requires cleaning and maintenance, exposing the target to contaminants. Sellers’s method provided an effective way to decontaminate the target to ensure the quality and purity of subsequent films, which aligned with Barber's goal of depositing high-quality films.
  • Expectation of Success: Implementing a well-known burn-in or reconditioning step to a sputtering process was a standard industry practice. A POSITA would have reasonably expected this addition to predictably improve the quality and consistency of the deposited films.

Ground 3: Alternative Argument for Pulsed-DC Power - Claims 1-21 are obvious over the primary combinations in further view of Belkind.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Belkind (a 2000 article, "Pulsed-DC reactive sputtering of dielectrics") in addition to the primary references for each asserted ground.

• Core Argument for this Ground:

  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted this as an alternative argument in case Barber was deemed not to teach a pulsed-DC voltage that alternates between positive and negative values. Belkind explicitly disclosed using bipolar pulsed-DC power for reactive sputtering of insulators, where the target voltage alternates between a negative "on-time" (for sputtering) and a positive "reverse time" (for neutralizing charge buildup on the target).
  • Motivation to Combine: Belkind explained that this bipolar pulsing was necessary to prevent destructive arcing at the target surface, a common problem when sputtering insulating materials. A POSITA seeking to implement Barber’s method for depositing high-quality insulating films would have been motivated to adopt Belkind's technique to suppress arcing, thereby improving process stability and film quality.
  • Expectation of Success: Pulsed-DC supplies capable of providing alternating positive and negative voltages to reduce arcing were known and commercially available, ensuring a POSITA would have a reasonable expectation of successfully implementing Belkind's teachings.

• Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted numerous additional obviousness challenges. These grounds relied on the core Barber/Hirose combination (optionally with Belkind) and added single references to teach specific dependent claim limitations, such as using a ceramic target (Dogheche), adjusting oxygen flow to control the refractive index (Safi), employing a linear magnet sweeping mechanism (Aokura), using alloyed and tiled targets (Segal), forming target tiles via atomization and hot isostatic pressing (Sakawaki), and configuring the filter with a specific bandwidth (Sill).

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued that discretionary denial under §325(d) would be inappropriate. Although the Belkind reference was cited in an Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) during prosecution, the examiner never substantively considered it or relied upon it in any rejection. Petitioner contended it was presenting Belkind in a new light with expert testimony, which the Patent Office had not previously considered.
• Petitioner also argued against discretionary denial under Fintiv based on co-pending district court litigation. The petition asserted that the parallel cases were in their infancy, with no firm trial dates or significant investment of judicial resources. Furthermore, Petitioner argued there was not a complete overlap of the invalidity grounds, and that Applied Materials, Inc. was not a party to the Texas litigations, making the IPR a more efficient forum for resolving the patentability of the challenged claims.

5. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requested institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-21 of Patent 7,381,657 as unpatentable.