Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/373,093

SAMPLED-DATA RECEIVER WITH CHOPPER STABILIZATION

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Sep 26, 2023
Examiner
NGUYEN, HIEU P
Art Unit
2843
Tech Center
2800 — Semiconductors & Electrical Systems
Assignee
Apple Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
92%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
2y 1m
To Grant
97%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 92% — above average
92%
Career Allow Rate
1123 granted / 1220 resolved
+24.0% vs TC avg
Moderate +5% lift
Without
With
+5.1%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Fast prosecutor
2y 1m
Avg Prosecution
25 currently pending
Career history
1245
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
0.3%
-39.7% vs TC avg
§103
54.9%
+14.9% vs TC avg
§102
28.6%
-11.4% vs TC avg
§112
5.3%
-34.7% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 1220 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statement filed on 09/26/2023 & 02/20/2025 has been considered and placed in the application file. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 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, 7 and 11-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (U.S. 10,797,661). Regarding claim 1, Chen et al. (hereinafter, Ref~661) discloses (e.g., please see Fig. 1 and related text for details) receiver circuitry (100 of Fig. 1 can be read as the claimed circuitry OR at least it is capable of being used as a receiver) comprising: a first chopper circuit (102 of Fig. 1); an alternating current (AC)-coupling circuit (106 with 112 and/or 114 of Fig. 1 can be read as the claimed circuit) coupled to an output of the first chopper circuit and to an input of an amplifier (differential amplifier 108 of fig. 1), the AC-coupling circuit comprising a first capacitor (disposed between 124 and 120 of Fig. 1) coupled to a first input terminal (non-inverting terminal of 108 of Fig. 1) of the amplifier, a second capacitor (disposed between 126 and 122 of Fig. 1) coupled to a second input terminal (inverting terminal of 108 of Fig. 1) of the amplifier, and a resistor (112 and/or 114 of Fig. 1 can be read as the claimed resistor OR at least it is functionally equivalent to it) coupled in series between the first input terminal and the second input terminal of the amplifier as seen; and a second chopper circuit (104 of Fig. 1) coupled to an output of the amplifier as seen, meeting claim 1. Regarding claims 7 and 13, Ref~661 supports the claimed “wherein the first capacitor, the second capacitor, and the resistor are configured to provide an AC corner frequency associated with the amplifier”, since it is configured in the same manner compared to the claimed one, meeting claims 7 and 13. Regarding claims 11-12, limitations from the claim can be rejected in the same manner as described above in claim 1, since same features with similar language are being presented here except for the claimed “a plurality of antennas” being employed. However, this is an intended use of the invention and the system of Ref~661 is capable of being used in a typical wireless communication system or the like that required antenna(s) depending on specifications/applications, meeting claims 11-12. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 2-6, 8-10 and 14-16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 17-20 are allowed. The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: Claims 17-20 are allowed over the prior art of record. The prior art of record, considered individually or in combination, fails to fairly teach or suggest the claimed circuit comprising, among other limitations and unobvious limitations of “a second AC-coupling circuit embedded between the first chopper circuit and the second chopper circuit, a second set of chopper circuits comprising a third chopper circuit and a fourth chopper circuit, and a second amplifier, a third AC-coupling circuit, and a fourth AC-coupling circuit embedded between the third chopper circuit and the fourth chopper circuit” structurally and functionally interconnected with other limitations in the manner as cited in the claims. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HIEU P NGUYEN whose telephone number is 571-272-8577. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 8:30AM-6:00PM. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrea Lindgren Baltzell can be reached on 571-272-5918. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 703-872-9306. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). /HIEU P NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2843
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Prosecution Timeline

Sep 26, 2023
Application Filed
Jan 21, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §103 (current)

Precedent Cases

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
92%
Grant Probability
97%
With Interview (+5.1%)
2y 1m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 1220 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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