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Doctrine of Equivalents and Sintered Silver (Ag) Paste as Bonding Materials

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Die-Attach Materials for High Temperature Applications in Microelectronics Packaging

Abstract

This chapter revisits the doctrine of equivalents (DOE) by reviewing previoius court cases to summarize and distill the main principles, and then, to select two pairs of US patents in the area of sintered silver (Ag) pastes to demonstrate their applications. The sintered Ag paste formulation is chosen as our case study because of the active patenting activities in the last 5 years. This interest stems from the urgency to find a lead-free bonding material to conform the EU environmental regulations and its excellent thermal-mechanical properties needed in the next generation of microelectronic packaging. This chapter demonstrates the limitations of DOE, and its applicability depends on the factors, such as prosecution history estoppel (PHE), public dedication, all-element rule, prior art, and the classification of nano-Ag materials. This article is expected to be useful for patent attorneys dealing with patent infringement cases related to nano-materials in the USA, as well as scientists and engineers who are working in the manufacturing industry to appreciate the DOE and PHE while analyzing the relevant patents in their job.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    DOE is used as an abbreviation for doctrine of equivalents in this chapter. In science and engineering-based research, DOE is often associated with the design of experiment, which is a methodology pioneered by Box, Hunter, and Hunter, to study the relationship between factors and outputs of an industry process.

  2. 2.

    DA5 consortium consists of Bosch, Infineon Technologies, NXP Semiconductor, STMicroelectronics, and Nexperia, formed to look for alternative Pb-free technologies to comply with EU Directive ROHS by 2021. iNEMI is a not-for-profit consortium of more than 90 electronics companies, associations, government agencies, and universities, formed with a mission to “forecast and accelerate improvements in the electronics manufacturing industry for a sustainable future” http://community.inemi.org/hightemp_pbfree_dieattach.

  3. 3.

    Fillers refer to the initial solid metal content which can come in the form of particles or flakes. A particle is approximately spherical with nearly identical lengths in all three dimensions, while flakes are layer-like structures with one dimension substantially smaller than the other two dimensions [14]

  4. 4.

    It is difficult to prove non-infringement when the accused product is considered to have “changed in principle” though the elements matched between the patentee and alleged infringer’s product [27].

  5. 5.

    Nano-Ag particle is known as Ag colloidal particle in the older scientific literature, and the latter is sometimes mentioned as such in the patent application. The synthesis of Ag colloidal particle was first reported in 1889 and repeated in 1969 based on a method known as Carey Lea’s approach [30].

  6. 6.

    In practice, analysis of silver paste is a difficult task because the characteristic claims (chemical and physical features of the active ingredients) of the patents need to be deciphered from the complex mixture of Ag paste and quantified with analytical tools that possess inherent technical limitations. For example, the characteristic claim could just be the capping agent on the nano-Ag particles that mixed and decomposed together with the surrounding dispersion medium (e.g., solvent) when heated during chemical analysis.

  7. 7.

    The web link for checking litigation status of patents (http://maxinsight.maxval.com/LitigationChecker.aspx).

  8. 8.

    Diameter – “value represented by the diameter of a sphere having the same volume as measured by conventional methods known to those of skill in the art, including sieving and laser diffraction particle size analysis” [42]. In spite of similar length scale, characterization of nano-Ag particles, typically, used other measurement method, i.e., transmission electron microscopy or scanning electron microscopy.

  9. 9.

    Some micron-Ag paste does not have any decomposable silver compounds, but instead moderate pressure, up to 10 MPa, is often applied to form the sintered Ag joint during the bonding process. Such applied pressure was also used by nano-Ag and hybrid Ag paste to densify the Ag joint to meet the required mechanical and thermal properties.

  10. 10.

    Although the “inorganic particles” was not included in the Bando claims, their specifications suggested gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and copper as examples, but more than half of the disclosed embodiments referred to silver. In a “real” infringement case, these different metallic elements can be easily distinguished with ordinary laboratory equipment like energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscope attached to scanning electron microscope.

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Acknowledgment

The author greatly appreciate WIPO Scholarship for providing the financial support to attend his Master of Laws in Intellectual Property at the University of Turin-WIPO programme, and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Research Grant (GUP-2017-055 “Production of Metallic Conducting Nanowires for Industrial Applications”) for this research chapter. He also acknowledged Prof. Craig Nard (Case Western University), Prof. Alessandro Cogo (University of Turin), and Dr. Maximiliano Marzetti (University of Turin) for their advices and guidance in writing this research work.

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  1. Faculty of Law, University of Turin, Torino, TO, Italy

    K. S. Siow

  2. Institute of Microengineering and Nanoelectronics, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

    K. S. Siow

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  1. Institute of Microengineering and Nanoelectronics, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi Selangor, Malaysia

    Kim S. Siow

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Siow, K.S. (2019). Doctrine of Equivalents and Sintered Silver (Ag) Paste as Bonding Materials. In: Siow, K. (eds) Die-Attach Materials for High Temperature Applications in Microelectronics Packaging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99256-3_7

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