DETAILED ACTION
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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 3/9/26 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendments/arguments have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Hatano US 11,239,817.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 17, 21-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Hatano US 11,239,817.
1. Hatano discloses an acoustic resonator device (Figs. 2A,B, also annotated above etc.) comprising:
a piezoelectric layer (12) having front and back surfaces;
an interdigital transducer (IDT; 20) on the front surface comprising interleaved fingers extending from opposing busbars (18), an overlapping distance of the interleaved fingers defining an aperture (tip and center regions) of the acoustic resonator device;
a modified acoustic velocity region (gap region only or in addition with tip region) proximate an edge (tip) of the aperture; and
a dielectric layer (125) on the piezoelectric layer and in the modified acoustic velocity region,
wherein the dielectric layer is thinner in the modified acoustic velocity region (e.g., gap region) than in central portion (center) of the aperture of the acoustic resonator device,
wherein the interleaved fingers are disposed at a first portion (e.g., center region) of the piezoelectric layer and each of the opposing busbars are disposed at a second portion (e.g., busbar region; 110A) of the piezoelectric layer (definition as needed), and
wherein a device thickness of the modified acoustic velocity region is thinner than device thicknesses of each of the first portion and the second portion (see Fig. 2B).
3. The acoustic resonator device of claim 1, wherein the interleaved fingers extend alternately from the opposing busbars, and wherein the modified acoustic velocity region is outside of the aperture (gap region only) and between an end of each interleaved finger of the interleaved fingers and one of the busbars of the opposing busbars (Figs. 2A,B).
7. The acoustic resonator device of claim 1, wherein the modified acoustic velocity region is configured to reduce acoustic energy leakage as compared to an acoustic resonator device without a modified acoustic velocity region (abstract; Col. 2 lines 28-43, Col. 5 lines 61-67).
21. The acoustic resonator device of claim 1, wherein the opposing bausbars include a first busbar and a second busbar, the interleaved fingers extend alternately from the first and second busbars (see Fig. 2A), the modified acoustic velocity region extends from the first busbar towards the interleaved fingers extending from the second busbar (gap region), and the modified acoustic velocity region overlaps at least a portion of the interleaved fingers (tip region) extending from the second busbar in a plan view of the first surface of the piezoelectric layer (i.e., gap region and tip region together as the modified acoustic velocity region).
8, 10, 14, 22. For brevity, Hatano discloses a filter device (Fig. 7A), a conductor patten comprising a plurality of IDTs of a respective plurality of resonators (i.e., the IDTs of the various resonators as shown; Col. 9 lines 47-55) and resonators as similarly discussed above (see claims 1, 3, 7, 21 above).
15, 17, 23. For brevity, Hatano discloses a method of fabricating (realized by) an acoustic resonator device as similarly discussed above (see claims 1, 3, 21 above).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 2, 4, 5, 9, 11, 12, 16, 18, 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hatano US 11,239,817.
2, 4, 9, 11, 16, 18. Hatano discloses the invention as discussed above, including the IDT has a central part without dummy fingers (14A, similar to Fig. 1A) but does not explicitly disclose for claims 2, 9, 16: dummy fingers in the modified acoustic velocity region; for claims 4, 11, 18: at least one dummy finger in the modified velocity region between at least one interleaved finger and one busbar of the opposing busbars.
Hatano exemplarily discloses other IDT structure (Fig. 1C) including dummy fingers (20C) between one busbar (18A,B) and interleaved fingers (20B).
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have made/replaced the central part of the IDT with IDT part including dummy fingers. The modification would have been obvious as a simple substitution and/or combination of parts (i.e., with or without dummy fingers) as taught by Hatano (Figs. 1A,C, 2A, etc.; Col. 13 lines 62-64). As a result of the combination, the dummy fingers would be located in the modified acoustic velocity region (e.g., as part of the gap region) and between the busbars and interleaved fingers.
5, 12, 19. Hatano discloses the at least one dummy finger extends from the one busbar of the opposing busbars, and wherein a length of the at least one dummy finger corresponds to a distance between the at least one dummy finger and the at least one interleaved finger (Fig. 1C; length of the dummy finger 20C is necessary correspond, that is in a ratio, to the distance between the dummy finger and the interleaved finger).
Conclusion
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/A.W/Examiner, Art Unit 2843
/ANDREA LINDGREN BALTZELL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2843
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