Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology – Measuring or testing process involving enzymes or... – Involving nucleic acid
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-05
2001-10-30
Horlick, Kenneth R. (Department: 1656)
Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology
Measuring or testing process involving enzymes or...
Involving nucleic acid
C435S091200, C435S283100, C435S285100, C435S287200, C536S022100, C536S023100, C324S071500, C324S073100, C257S040000, C257S414000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06309831
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In most manufacturing in parallel scenarios, items to be manufactured must undergo a number of processing steps in order to obtain a finished product. Manufacturing of quantities of items in parallel requires that a representative group of the items manufactured undergo quality control testing in order to assure that the entire lot passes the appropriate standard. Typically, the quality control testing of the items to be manufactured is performed at the point the item of manufacture is completed. In the event that the representative sample of items fails the requisite standards, all the items that had been processed with samples which would be expected to have similar defects are rejected. When the basis for rejection exists because of a process which occurred several steps prior to the completion of the product, the further processes were performed unnecessarily, at a great expense of time and money.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention allows one to perform the quality control testing of items manufactured in parallel at a point before completion of the item or at a point when a further expensive processing step is necessary. Only samples of the product are processed to completion for quality control testing. If the completed products are rejected at this point, the time, effort and expense of performing the additional processing step(s) on the otherwise uncompleted products is avoided. If the items to be further processed have met the relevant quality control standard then the further processing can be accomplished with an expectation that the items meet the requisite standard thus far. Consequently, this invention allows for more effective use of resources.
This invention provides a method for manufacturing a plurality of items in parallel by first selecting a sample of the manufactured items from the plurality undergoing a process and subject this sample to further processing. The quality of the selected sample is subsequently determined, and if found to be satisfactory, the remainder of the items are subjected to further processing. The items of manufacture in the disclosed invention, for example, can be chips on a wafer. The further processing in this example can consist of the packaging of the chips. The chips can be biological chips composed of DNA, RNA, amino acids or analogs by thereof. This invention further provides a method for manufacturing arrays of necleic acids by fabricating a plurality of nucleic acid arrays on a substrate, separating the arrays, packaging a selected sample of the arrays, testing the selected sample and packaging the remaining arrays if the selected sample of arrays pass the testing step. The arrays of nucleic acid may be manufactured by, inter alia, light directed synthesis, nucleic acid spotting, or jet synthesis. The arrays on the substrate may be separated by sawing or scribing. Advantageous points in the process of array fabrication are useful for employing the method of the present invention.
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Goldberg Martin J.
Rava Richard P.
Affymetrix Inc.
Banner Pamela
Evans Tom
Horlick Kenneth R.
McGarrigle Philip
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