Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 10/23/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 09/23/2025, with respect to amended claims 1/23 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 103 rejection of claims 1/23 has been withdrawn.
Claim Interpretation
Claim 1/23-25 recites “native surface”. Examiner interprets “native surface” to [0088] of the instant specification in which “Native surface, by contrast, are those surface which result from the production process itself, i.e. from the hot forming of a glass, and which in particular are not subject to any mechanical post-processing, in particular no polishing and/or grinding. Preferable, the surface of the flat glass have a fire-polished quality”. With regards to claims 24-25, [0088] teaches a native surface is from hot forming glass which creates a fire-polished quality. Thus, the Examiner interprets a hot formed glass such as from a float glass process creates fire-polished quality surface. In another interpretation, dependent claim 19 teaches of further fire-polishing the surface.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 and 23 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1/23 recites “di-electric constant” and “dielectric loss factor”. Please use the “dielectric” spelling to be consistent with the specification
Claim 23 recites “the flat glass has the dielectric constant of 4.3 less”. The Examiner believes the limitation should be “the flat glass has a dielectric constant of 4.3 or less”. See the 112a rejection below regarding the electronic component.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-2, 4-12, and 16-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1/23 recites “the electronic component… has a di-electric constant of 3.94 to 4.3” and “flat glass has the di-electric constant between 3.94 to 4.3”; Claim 23 recites “the electronic component… has a di-electric constant of 3.94 to 4.3”. According to the specification, only the flat glass has the instantly claimed dielectric constant (abstract; [0044, 95-100]). There is no indication that the electronic component has the same dielectric constant range. Please delete the first limitation and amend the second limitation with the correct antecedent basis. Dependent claims 2, 4-12, 16-22, and 24-25 are rejected because they depend from and thus include all the limitations of claim 1/23 and do not solve the deficiencies thereof.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-2, 4-12, and 16-25 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The term “high frequency” in claim 1/23 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “high frequency” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. In particular, is this application only at the 5 GHz at which the dielectric loss factor was measured or applications in a broader range? If so, the metes and bounds of “high frequency” or not definite. Dependent claims 2, 4-12, 16-22, and 24-25 are rejected because they depend from and thus include all the limitations of claim 1/23 and do not solve the deficiencies thereof.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-2, 4-12, and 16-25 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) and 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
The following is an examiner's statement of reasons for allowable:
Regarding claims 1/23, a primary reason why it is deemed novel and non-obvious over the prior art of record Mehmood et al ("Dielectric resonator antenna phased array with liquid crystal based phase shifters"), Lautenschlager et al (US-20170052311-A1), and King (US-20140152914-A1) teaches the application of a flat glass with similar composition and properties as instantly claimed, the prior art does not teach the glass network formers (SiO2 and B2O3) and network modifiers (Al2O3, Na2O, K2O, Li2O) with trace iron content in the instantly claimed range.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US-20100045164-A1, US-20090129061-A1, US-20090109654-A1, US-20060010917-A1, US-20060009343-A1 teach broader aluminoborosilicate compositions with property ranges that overlap the instant claims without any working examples that fall within the narrow instantly claimed ranges
From prior Office Actions:
DE-10150884-A1 teaches an alkali borosilicate with Fe3+/Fe2+ > 1.5 which would equivalently yield Fe2+/(Fe2++Fe3+) < 0.4 which encompasses the range of the instant claim
US-4298389-A teaches 30:70 = Fe2+:Fe3+ ratio for alumino-borosilicate soda-lime glass
WO-2018051793-A1 teaches an alkali borosilicate glass with Al2O3 with transmittance, iron ion ratio, and surface roughness that read on the instant application; teaches dielectric constant and dielectric loss factor but not at the instantly claimed frequency; teaches float, overflow down-draw slit down draw which reads on hot formed native surface of fire-polished quality, suitable to be used as a primary reference
US-5610108-A, US-20100255980-A1 teaches iron ion ratio criticality for borosilicate transmittance
US-7022251-B2 teaches borosilicate glass material with dielectric constant of 3.9 and loss factor of 0.0001 (Col. 2 Line 45-51; Col. 4 Line 51-52)
US-8273671-B2 teaches using borosilicate float glass for glass substrate-based radio antenna for suitable dielectric constant, dielectric loss factor, silent on optical properties
US-5599753-A, US-7838452-B2 teach borosilicate glass with high transmittance in the UV range with overlapping transmittance at the 254 nm wavelength, and changing iron content to optimize UV transmittance
JP-2011042508-A teach broad dielectric constant and loss factor ranges for borosilicate glass
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEVEN S LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-2645. The examiner can normally be reached 9am - 5pm Mon-Thurs.
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/STEVEN S LEE/Examiner, Art Unit 1741
/ALISON L HINDENLANG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1741