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 .
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed November 15, 2025 has been entered. Claims 1-13 remain pending in the application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed November 15, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The rejections of claims 1-13 are maintained.
Applicant argues, see pages 7-13, that the previously presented prior art references fail to disclose the newly amended limitation of “the detection circuit is configured to … output a control current to the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit” as claimed in claim 1, and that therefore, there is no motivation to combine the references to arrive at the claimed invention, and the combination of references would render previously presented primary prior art reference Tseng et al. (Patent Publication Number US 2017/0207758 A1), hereafter referred to as Tseng, as unsatisfactory for its intended purpose. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Applicant argues that Tseng fails to disclose a detection circuit that outputs a control current. Examiner respectfully disagrees. As shown in Fig. 4 of Tseng, elements 310, 320, M3, 332, 342, 334, and 344 of the detection circuit 230 (elements forming the claimed detection circuit) work together to provide current ΔI to element 350 (element forming the claimed reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit) of the detection circuit 230. Therefore, Tseng does disclose a detection circuit that outputs a control current to the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit.
Applicant further argues that previously presented prior art reference Usui et al. (Patent Number US 9,225,364 B1), hereafter referred to as Usui, fails to disclose a control current. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
As discussed above, Tseng discloses “a control current” and therefore Usui is not required to provide this limitation for the combination, as Usui was used solely to provide threshold conditions for the activation of a control signal according to the input signal power.
Applicant further argues that there is a lack of motivation to combine Tseng and Usui to arrive at the claimed invention. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
In response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, Usui discloses that the threshold conditions of Usui enable improving distortion compensation accuracy (Usui, Col. 7, line 61-Col. 8, line 2). Therefore, there is motivation to combine the references.
Applicant further argues that the combination of Tseng in view of Usui would render Tseng as being unsatisfactory for its intended purpose because Tseng would need to be modified to incorporate a control current. Examiner respectfully disagrees. As described above, Tseng itself discloses a control current (Tseng, Fig. 4, see current ΔI), and therefore would not need to be modified to incorporate the usage of a control current. Therefore, all of applicant’s arguments are unconvincing, and the rejections of claims 1-13 are maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-5, 9, and 11-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tseng in view of Usui.
Regarding claim 1, Tseng discloses:
A compensation circuit of amplitude modulation-phase modulation of a radio frequency power amplifier (Tseng, Figs. 2 and 4, see also Paragraph 20, lines 1-4), comprising a detection circuit (Fig. 2, 230, see also Fig. 4, 310, 320, M3, 332, 342, 334, and 344), a reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit (Fig. 2, 230, see also Fig. 4, 350), and a phase shifting circuit (Fig. 2, 222 and 224), wherein the detection circuit is configured to detect a power of an input signal (Paragraph 16, lines 9-12) and output a control current to the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit (Fig. 4, see connection between current ΔI and 350); the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit is configured to generate a bias voltage according to the control current (Paragraph 16, lines 9-12); and the phase shifting circuit is configured to compensate an amplitude modulation-phase modulation AM-PM distortion of the radio frequency power amplifier (Paragraph 20, lines 1-4) according to the bias voltage (Fig. 2, see bias voltage Vb at inputs of 222 and 224), but fails to disclose [output the control current] according to the power of the input signal when the power of the input signal is greater than a preset power threshold that is adjustable and represents a power point at which compensation is turned on; wherein the detection circuit is configured to only detect the power of the input signal but not output the control current when the power of the input signal does not reach the preset power threshold.
However, Usui teaches [output the control current] according to the power of the input signal (Fig. 2, see also Col. 6, lines 23-29) when the power of the input signal is greater than a preset power threshold (Col. 6, lines 29-31) that is adjustable (Col. 6, lines 45-54) and represents a power point at which compensation is turned on (Col. 6, lines 31-39); wherein the detection circuit is configured to only detect the power of the input signal (Col. 6, lines 23-25) but not output the control current when the power of the input signal does not reach the preset power threshold (Col. 6, lines 31-35 [consider that the updating unit 35 is disabled when the input power is below the preset power threshold, and therefore the control current is not output]).
Tseng and Usui are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of improving amplifiers used in radio frequency communications. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Tseng to incorporate the teachings of Usui to activate the compensation circuit of Tseng only when the power of the input signal is above a threshold level, which would have the effect of improving distortion compensation accuracy (Usui, Col. 7, line 61-Col. 8, line 2).
Regarding claim 2, Tseng fails to disclose:
wherein the compensation circuit further comprises a first control voltage source, which is connected with the detection circuit; the first control voltage source is configured to output a first control voltage; and the detection circuit is further configured to adjust the preset power threshold according to the first control voltage.
However, Usui further teaches wherein the compensation circuit further comprises a first control voltage source (Usui, Fig. 2, 26), which is connected with the detection circuit (Fig. 2, see connection between 26 and 25); the first control voltage source is configured to output a first control voltage (Fig. 2, see output of 26); and the detection circuit is further configured to adjust the preset power threshold according to the first control voltage (Col. 6, lines 45-54).
Tseng and Usui are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of improving amplifiers used in radio frequency communications. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Tseng to incorporate the teachings of Usui to allow for adjusting the power deactivation threshold, which would have the effect of improving distortion compensation accuracy (Usui, Col. 7, line 61-Col. 8, lines 2)
Regarding claim 3, Tseng further discloses:
wherein the compensation circuit further comprises a second control voltage source (Tseng, Fig. 4, see TH1 and TH2), which is connected with the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit (Fig. 4, see connection between TH1 and 332, and TH2 and 342); the second control voltage source is configured to output a second control voltage (Fig. 4, TH2) and a third control voltage (Fig. 4, TH1); and the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit is further configured to control a corresponding relationship between the bias voltage and the control current according to the second control voltage and the third control voltage (Paragraph 19, lines 9-11, see also Fig. 5, which depicts the relationship between the bias voltage and the input power).
Regarding claim 4, Tseng further discloses:
wherein the corresponding relationship comprises an increasing function relationship (Tseng, Fig. 5, see section between P2 and P3) or a decreasing function relationship (Fig. 5, see section between P1 and P2); wherein the increasing function relationship indicates that the bias voltage increases with an increase of the control current (Paragraph 19, lines 14-16), and the decreasing function relationship indicates that the bias voltage decreases with the increase of the control current (Paragraph 19, lines 11-14).
Regarding claim 5, Tseng further discloses:
wherein the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit comprises a first transistor group (Tseng, Fig. 4, M8 and M9) and a second transistor group (Fig. 4, M4 and M6), and both the first transistor group and the second transistor group comprise multiple switching transistors (Fig. 4, M4 and M8 apply signals to M6 and M9, respectively, which adjust currents flowing from 334 and 344, respectively, based on whether the input power meets the respective thresholds); the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit is specifically configured to control that the bias voltage and the control current have the increasing function relationship when the first transistor group is controlled to turn on according to the second control voltage and the second transistor group is controlled to turn off according to the third control voltage; or, the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit is specifically configured to control that the bias voltage and the control current have the decreasing function relationship when the first transistor group is controlled to turn off according to the second control voltage and the second transistor group is controlled to turn on according to the third control voltage (Fig. 4, when TH1 is activated and TH2 is deactivated, the relationship is decreasing, see also Fig. 5 between points P1 and P2).
Regarding claim 9, Tseng further discloses:
A radio frequency power amplifier (Tseng, Fig. 2, 200), comprising the compensation circuit of claim 1 (see above).
Regarding claim 11, Tseng further discloses:
wherein the amplification circuit comprises one amplification transistor; or, the amplification circuit comprises multiple amplification transistors, which form a stacked tube structure (Tseng, Fig. 2, see 210, each branch of the amplifier 200 comprises one amplification transistor).
Regarding claim 12, Tseng in view of Usui further discloses:
wherein the detection circuit, the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit and the phase shifting circuit are cooperatively operated such that when the power of the input signal is greater than the preset power threshold (Consider the combination of Tseng in view of Usui, as utilized for claim 1 above, wherein there is a preset power threshold below which the compensation circuitry is turned off, see also Usui, Col. 6, lines 31-39), the AM-PM distortion of the radio frequency power amplifier is compensated according to the power of the input signal, thereby reducing the AM-PM distortion generated during signal amplification, and improving signal quality and ACLR performance of the radio frequency power amplifier (Tseng, Paragraph 20, lines 1-7).
Regarding claim 13, Tseng further discloses:
An electronic device (Tseng, Fig. 2, 200), comprising the radio frequency power amplifier of claim 9 (see above).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tseng in view of Usui as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Chiu et al. (Patent Number EP 2,985,669 B1).
Regarding claim 6, Tseng and Usui fail to disclose:
wherein the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit comprises a variable resistor; and the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit is configured to adjust a compensation degree of the compensation circuit to the AM-PM distortion of the radio frequency power amplifier by adjusting a resistance of the variable resistor.
However, Chiu teaches wherein the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit comprises a variable resistor (Fig. 4, 305); and the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit is configured to adjust a compensation degree of the compensation circuit to the AM-PM distortion of the radio frequency power amplifier by adjusting a resistance of the variable resistor (Paragraph 16, lines 1-5, Note: usage of the variable resistor in the compensation circuit of Tseng would result in the adjustable resistance adjusting the compensation degree).
Tseng, Usui, and Chiu are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of improving amplifiers used in radio frequency communications. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Tseng to incorporate the teachings of Chiu to include the voltage generation circuit of Chiu in the voltage source circuit of Tseng, which would have the effect of providing an adjustable bias voltage that uses low power consumption (Chiu, Paragraph 23, lines 2-3).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tseng in view of Usui as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Kim et al. (Patent Number US 7,944,283 B2), hereafter referred to as Kim.
Regarding claim 7, Tseng further discloses:
wherein the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit comprises at least one current mirror module which is composed of two transistors (Tseng, Fig. 4, M9 and M10 form a current mirror); but fails to disclose and the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit is configured to adjust the compensation degree of the compensation circuit to the AM-PM distortion of the radio frequency power amplifier by adjusting an area ratio of the current mirror module.
However, Kim teaches and the reconfigurable current control voltage source circuit is configured to adjust the compensation degree of the compensation circuit to the AM-PM distortion of the radio frequency power amplifier by adjusting an area ratio of the current mirror module (Kim, Col. 6, lines 31-36, see also Col. 9, lines 8-14).
Tseng, Usui, and Kim are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of improving amplifiers used in radio frequency communications. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Tseng to incorporate the teachings of Kim to modify the area ratio of the current mirror of Tseng, which would have the effect of allowing for optimization of circuit parameters (Kim, Col. 9, lines 8-14).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tseng in view of Usui as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Chen et al. (Patent Publication Number CN 111,865,233 A), hereafter referred to as Chen.
Regarding claim 8, Tseng discloses:
and compensate the AM-PM distortion of the radio frequency power amplifier according to the equivalent capacitance (Paragraph 16, lines 1-5 on Page 2), but fails to disclose wherein the phase shifting circuit comprises a phase shifting transistor; and the phase shifting circuit is specifically configured to adjust an equivalent capacitance of the phase shifting transistor according to the bias voltage.
However, Chen teaches wherein the phase shifting circuit comprises a phase shifting transistor (Chen, Fig. 3, 2243); and the phase shifting circuit is specifically configured to adjust an equivalent capacitance of the phase shifting transistor according to the bias voltage (Page 7, Paragraph 2, [Note: changing gate voltage of a transistor will also change its capacitance]).
Tseng, Usui, and Chen are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of improving amplifiers used in radio frequency communications. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Tseng to incorporate the teachings of Chen to use a phase shifting transistor for a variable capacitance, which would have the effect of allowing for fine adjustments in the phase shift amount (Chen, Page 7, Paragraph 2, lines 6-9).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tseng in view of Usui as applied to claim 9 above, and further in view of Su et al. (Patent Publication Number CN 110,768,630 A), hereafter referred to as Su.
Regarding claim 10, Tseng further discloses:
wherein the radio frequency power amplifier further comprises an amplification circuit (Tseng, Fig. 2, 210), and both the compensation circuit are connected with a signal input end of the amplification circuit (Fig. 2, see connection between 210 and 222/224); the compensation circuit is configured to compensate the AM-PM distortion of the radio frequency power amplifier based on the input signal, to obtain a compensated input signal (Paragraph 20, lines 1-4); but fails to disclose a bias circuit and the bias circuit [is connected with a signal input end of the amplification circuit], the bias circuit is configured to provide a bias current for the amplification circuit; and the amplification circuit is configured to power amplify the compensated input signal based on the bias current.
However, Su teaches a bias circuit (Su, Fig. 1, Ib, M1, and C1) and the bias circuit [is connected with a signal input end of the amplification circuit] (Fig. 1, see connection between M1 and Vin), the bias circuit is configured to provide a bias current for the amplification circuit (Fig. 1, see Ib); and the amplification circuit is configured to power amplify the compensated input signal based on the bias current (Fig. 1, see Ib and compensated signal from D1 at input of amplification circuit M2).
Tseng, Usui, and Su are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of improving amplifiers used in radio frequency communications. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Tseng to incorporate the teachings of Su to include the bias circuit of Su at the input of the power amplifier of Tseng, which would have the effect of providing appropriate biasing for the power amplifier of Tseng.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Bai (Patent Publication Number EP 3,396,857 A1) discloses (Fig. 6) a diode-based capacitance compensation circuit for a power amplifier.
Demsky et al. discloses (Fig. 5) a biasing circuit that allows for a positive or negative correlation of its output relative to its input.
Salameh (Patent Publication Number US 2022/0247358 A1) discloses (Fig. 6A) a transistor stack.
Bachman, II et al. (Patent Number US 7,167,693 B2) discloses (Fig. 3) a compensation method including selectively activation compensation based on a variable threshold.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Lance T Bartol whose telephone number is (703)756-1267. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 6:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. CT, Alternating Fridays 6:30 - 3:00.
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/LANCE TORBJORN BARTOL/Examiner, Art Unit 2843
/ANDREA LINDGREN BALTZELL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2843