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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1 – 10, 16, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takahashi (JP 2008-137123) in view of Shirai (JP 2010-147871).
Takahashi discloses, regarding,
Claim 1, An acoustic wave device comprising: a support substrate 1 with a thickness in a first direction; an intermediate layer 20 on the support substrate (see Fig. 3b); a piezoelectric layer 53 adjacent to the support substrate in the first direction; and a functional electrode 51 on the piezoelectric layer 53; wherein a cavity 70 is provided in the intermediate layer; and the intermediate layer includes a first portion and a second portion (see Figs. 3b, 2c, 6b), the first portion is closer to the cavity than the second portion, and the first portion is more soluble in a prescribed etchant than the second portion (since a wet etching procedure is performed; see description regarding Fig 3b).
Shirai is being cited for showing a substrate with a piezoelectric layer, a cavity (see Figs. 3, 6) and teaching that it is possible to have a first and second portion with different soluble prescribed etchant since mixed and aqueous solutions are used; see Figs. 1 – 4 description).
The Prior Art further discloses, regarding,
Claim 2, An acoustic wave device comprising: a support substrate with a thickness in a first direction; an intermediate layer on the support substrate; a piezoelectric layer adjacent to the support substrate in the first direction; and a functional electrode on the piezoelectric layer; wherein a cavity is provided in the intermediate layer; and the intermediate layer includes a first portion and a second portion, the first portion is closer to the cavity than the second portion (see rejection for claim 1 above), and the first portion is less soluble in a prescribed etchant than the second portion (since isotropic and anisotropic wet, aqueous procedures are used; Shira, Figs. 1 – 4 description; Takahashi, Figs. 2, 3, 6 description).
Claim 3, an amount of crystallized component of the first portion is different from an amount of crystallized component of the second portion (at some point due to the inaccurate process of isotropic etching).
Claim 4, an amount of crystallized component of the first portion is smaller than an amount of crystallized component of the second portion (at some point due to the inaccurate process of isotropic etching).
Claim 5, the first portion and the second portion have different degrees of carbonization from each other (at some point due to the inaccurate process of isotropic etching).
Claim 6, the first portion has a greater degree of carbonization than the second portion (at some point due to the inaccurate process of isotropic etching).
Claim 7, the intermediate layer includes an inorganic material (Takahashi, Figs. 1, 3C description).
Claim 8, the intermediate layer includes an organic material including a crystalline polyimide resin that is photo-curable since it has been held to be within the general skill of a worker in the art to select a known material on the basis of its suitability for the intended use as a matter of obvious design choice. In re Leshin, 125 USPQ 416.
Claim 9, the intermediate layer is a multilayer body including a metal layer and an organic material including a crystalline polyimide resin that is photo-curable since it has been held to be within the general skill of a worker in the art to select a known material on the basis of its suitability for the intended use as a matter of obvious design choice. In re Leshin, 125 USPQ 416.
Claim 10, the support substrate is translucent since it has been held to be within the general skill of a worker in the art to select a known material on the basis of its suitability for the intended use as a matter of obvious design choice. In re Leshin, 125 USPQ 416.
Claim 16, the functional electrode includes one or more first 41 electrode fingers extending in a second direction that intersects the first direction and a plurality of second electrode fingers extending in the second direction and each facing any of the one or more first electrode fingers in a third direction perpendicular or substantially perpendicular to the second direction; and when a region where adjacent ones of the first and second electrode fingers overlap when viewed in the direction in which the first and second electrode fingers face each other is an excitation region and a metallization ratio of the one or more first electrode fingers and the plurality of second electrode fingers to the excitation region is MR, MR < about 1.75(d/p) + 0.075 is satisfied, since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233.
Claim 18, Euler angles (p,6,$) of lithium niobate or lithium tantalate of the piezoelectric layer are within a range of Formula (1), (2), or (3): (000' to 200 any *)...Formula (1); (00 200 to 8000' to 600 (1-(e-50)2/900 ) or (00 200 to 800, [180'-60'(1-(6-50)2/900) to 180')...Formula (2); and (00 [18 (1-( 90)2/8100)1/2] to 1800 any i)...Formula (3) since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233.
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to design the device as disclose by Takahashi and to modify the invention per the limitations disclosed by Shirai for the purpose of improving the manufacturing yields of resonators.
Claim(s) 11 – 15, 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takahashi and Shirai as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Kando et al (US 2014/0152145).
The combined device discloses all of the elements above. However, the combined device does not disclose the elements below.On the other hand, Kando et al discloses, regarding,
Claim 11, the functional electrode includes one or more first electrode fingers extending in a second direction that intersects the first direction, and one or more second electrode fingers extending in the second direction and facing any of the one or more first electrode fingers in a third direction perpendicular or substantially perpendicular to the second 40 direction; and when p is a distance between centers of adjacent first and second electrode fingers of the one or more first electrode fingers and the one or more second electrode fingers, a thickness of the piezoelectric layer is about 2p or less (see Figs. 1B, 71).
Claim 12, the piezoelectric layer includes lithium niobate or lithium tantalate (Takahashi, Fig. 1).
Claim 13, the acoustic wave device is structured to generate thickness- shear mode bulk waves [0005].
Claim 14, the functional electrode includes one or more first electrode fingers extending in a second direction that intersects the first direction, and one or more second electrode fingers extending in the second direction and each facing any of the one or more first electrode fingers in a third direction perpendicular or substantially perpendicular to the second direction; and when d is a thickness of the piezoelectric layer and p is a distance between centers of adjacent first and second electrode fingers of the one or more first electrode fingers and the one or more second electrode fingers, d/p is about 0.5 or less since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233 .
Claim 15, d/p is about 0.24 or less since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233.
Claim 17, the acoustic wave device is structured to generate plate waves (see abstract).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to design the combined device as disclose above and to modify the invention per the limitations disclosed by Kando et al for the purpose of increasing the power handling capabilities of elastic wave devices.
Claim(s) 19 – 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takahashi and Shirai as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Araki (US 2014/0231382).
The combined device all of the elements above. The Prior Art discloses, regarding,
Claim 19, An acoustic wave device manufacturing method comprising: bonding a support substrate and a piezoelectric layer to each other via an intermediate layer (Shirai, Figs. 1, 3, 4 description); and being more soluble in a prescribed etchant than the second portion (see rejection for claim 1 above); and forming a cavity by dissolving the first portion of the intermediate layer formed in the forming and modifying (see Shirai, Fig. 4).
The problem to be solve appears to use a well-known bonding procedure. In that respect, Araki teaches a method of manufacturing a piezoelectric device in which
after the bonding, forming and modifying a first portion of the intermediate layer surrounded by a second portion of the intermediate layer [0024, 0025, 0081, Fig. 5A].
Claim 20, in the forming and modifying, one of laser irradiation, ion irradiation, and electron beam irradiation is applied, and different degrees of the laser irradiation, ion irradiation, or electron beam irradiation are applied to the first and second portions (Shirai, Fig 1E description).
Claim 21, the support substrate is translucent; and in the forming and modifying, laser light passes through the support substrate (Shirai, Fig 1E description).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to design the combined device as disclose above and to modify the invention per the limitations disclosed by Araki for the purpose of reducing the manufacturing costs of piezoelectric devices.
Conclusion
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/Julio C. Gonzalez/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2831
June 8, 2026
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