March 13, 2007
Japan Patent Office
Project: D141
Subclass: C30B
JP Comments on Rapporteur Proposal (annex 2)
We highly appreciate Rapporteur’s excellent work.
(1) Crystal and Single-Crystal
In “Glossary”, “Crystal” and “Single-Crystal” consist of not only atoms but also
molecules. Subclass C30B covers organic compound crystals in C30B 29/54, and a
single crystal of organic compound is constituted by an arrangement of organic
molecules. Therefore, we think it appropriate to add “or molecules (not particles or
crystals)” after the phrases of “long-range arrangement of atoms” in the glossaries of
“Crystal” and “Single-Crystal”.
(2) Photonic Crystal
We understand that the definition of the crystal is traditionally a solid consisting of
polyhedrons made by regularly and periodically ordered “atoms or molecules” in
accordance with one symmetry. However, the typical structure of a photonic crystal is
based on a lattice filled with regular arrays of micron size air holes. (See WO
2002/033461 A2, lines 20-23 in page 1.) In the case of photonic crystal, "colloid
crystals" or "spheres" rather than atoms are ordered in it, similar with a true crystal.
Therefore, we consider that a photonic crystal is not a “crystal”, even though its name
has crystal, and it is not contained in the crystal of C30B.
We think that documents about photonic crystals should be mainly classified in G02B
or G02F, since photonic crystals are used for optical devices or lenses. Or sometimes
B82B might be the most appropriate classification place.
Based on this understanding, we propose to add “Photonic crystals G02B, G02F,
B82B” at the bottom of “References relevant to classification in this subclass”.
(3) PVD and CVD
Crystal films or layers are often manufactured using PVD or CVD. In fact, C30B
has main groups C30B 23/00 (PVD) and C30B 25/00 (CVD).
Documents regarding PVD and CVD are classified in main groups C23C 14/00 and
C23C 16/00 respectively. Those classifications are often available for retrieving
documents about manufacturing crystals using PVD or CVD.
Thus, at the bottom of “Informative references”, we propose to add two paragraphs
below:
Coating by vacuum evaporation, by sputtering or by ion
implantation of the coating forming material
C23C 14/00
Chemical coating by decomposition of gaseous compounds,
C23C 16/00
without leaving reaction products of surface material in the
coating
(4) Epitaxy
In “Glossary”, “Epitaxy” is used with the only meaning of the formation of a
single-crystal. However, epitaxial growth is sometimes adopted for the formation of
polycrystalline fims or layers with defined structure, reflecting the state of its substrate.
Thus, we think it appropriate to define “Epitaxy” as “The formation of a crystal layer
on a substrate in such a manner that the formed crystal bears a definite crystallographic
relationship to the substrate.