PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16420398
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2019-05
Publication Date: 2019-09
Patent Classification: ["204", "298030"]

Abstract:
Provided are a thin film formation apparatus, a sputtering cathode, and a method of forming thin film, capable of forming a multilayer optical film at a high film deposition rate on a large-sized substrate. The thin film formation apparatus forms a thin film of a metal compound on a substrate in a vacuum chamber by sputtering. The vacuum chamber is provided in its inside with targets composed of metal or a conductive metal compound, and an active species source for generating an active species of a reactive gas. The active species source is provided with gas sources for supplying the reactive gas, and an energy source for supplying energy into the vacuum chamber to excite the reactive gas to a plasma state. The energy source is provided between itself and the vacuum chamber with a dielectric window for supplying the energy into the vacuum chamber.

Claim (Index 3):
The method of forming a thin film according to  claim 1 , further comprising:\n before the sputtering step, a step of introducing the substrate into an in-line type thin film formation apparatus having a plurality of film-forming stations each including the target and the active species source disposed on at least one of the upstream and downstream sides of the target in a substrate conveyance direction; an in-station film formation step, where the sputtering step, the composition conversion step, and the film formation repetitive step are carried out in the film-forming stations while the substrate is conveyed at a constant speed; a conveyance step for conveying the substrate to the film-forming stations on the downstream side in a substrate conveyance direction; a multiple-station film formation step, where the in-station film formation step and the conveyance step are repeated; and a discharge step for discharging the substrate to the atmosphere after the in-station film formation step is completed in the film-forming station on most downstream side in the substrate conveyance direction.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 5.0
- Percentile: 100.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.46032
- Patent Class: 204.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['10515730', '12289398', '14958138', '13700695', '15132396']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7437166727845268
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4934563166523848
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7186906371713127
- Mean Citation Score: 192.29264000000003
- Max Citation Score: 213.56511
- Similarity Product: 149.12271547458172

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 0
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test