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) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kani et al., US2023/0283306 A1, and further in view of Maruthamuthu et al., US2023/0387044 A1 (hereinafter, Mar).
Regarding claim 1, Kani teaches A radio frequency module (Fig. 1, par. 0013; a high frequency module) comprising: a filter having a first portion with a passband corresponding to a first receive frequency band and a second portion with a passband corresponding to at least a portion of a first transmit aggressor frequency band (par. 0065; A transmission filter 12 indicated by “Txn” represents a transmission filter provided on a transmission path P1 for a transmission signal of Band n, and a transmission filter 12 indicated by “Tx1” represents a transmission filter provided on a transmission path P1 for a transmission signal of Band 1.); a signal path configured to couple between an antenna and the filter, the filter including an antenna-side port coupled to the signal path (par. 0048; the antenna terminal 71 is connected to the plurality of transmission filters 12 and the plurality of reception filters 2 with the first switch 51 interposed therebetween.); and a receive amplifier coupled to the first portion of the filter (par. 0038; The plurality of inductors 4 are connected to the plurality of reception filters 2 and the plurality of low-noise amplifiers 3.).
Kani fails to teach the following recited limitation. However, Mar teaches a tunable termination impedance coupled to the second portion of the filter (par. 0028; the impedance tuner circuit 100 includes an input node 102 configured to receive a radio-frequency (RF) signal 104 and an output node 106. The impedance tuner circuit 100 filters the RF signal 104 received on the input node 102 into a filtered RF signal 104F on the output node 106 depending on the selected arrangement of involvement of passive filtering components, including the switchable inductors L.sub.1-L.sub.4.). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Kani’s teachings with Mar’s teachings in order to prevent increasing resistance in the inductive paths which reduces the quality (Q) factor of the discrete inductors, thereby reducing the filter performance of the impedance tuner circuit (Mar, par. 0003).
Regarding claims 2, 10 and 18, Kani and Mar teach all the limitations in claims 1, 9 and 17. Kani further teaches further comprising a first switch configured to couple the first portion of the filter to the receive amplifier and the second portion of the filter to the tunable termination impedance (par. 0132).
Regarding claims 3, 11 and 19, Kani and Mar teach all the limitations in claims 1, 9 and 17. Kani further teaches wherein the second portion of the filter includes a dual surface acoustic wave (dual-SAW) mode low power filter (par. 0063).
Regarding claims 4, 12 and 20, Kani and Mar teach all the limitations in claims 1, 9 and 17. Kani further teaches wherein the radio frequency module is a receive-only diversity receive (DRx) module (Fig. 2, par. 0118).
Regarding claims 5 and 13, Kani and Mar teach all the limitations in claims 1 and 9. Kani further teaches further comprising a transmit amplifier configured to amplify a transmit signal, the filter having a third portion coupled to the transmit amplifier and having a passband corresponding to a transmit signal frequency band (par. 0030).
Regarding claims 6 and 14, Kani and Mar teach all the limitations in claims 5 and 13. Kani further teaches further comprising a second switch configured to couple an output of the transmit amplifier to the third portion of the filter and to couple the second portion of the filter to the tunable termination impedance (par. 0032).
Regarding claims 7 and 15, Kani and Mar teach all the limitations in claims 1 and 9. Kani further teaches wherein the filter includes a third portion with a passband corresponding to a second receive frequency band (par. 0034).
Regarding claims 8 and 16, Kani and Mar teach all the limitations in claims 7 and 15. Kani further teaches wherein the first receive frequency band is a downlink band of 3GPP LTE B1 and the second receive frequency band is a downlink band of 3GPP LTE B3 (par. 0024).
Regarding claim 9, Kani teaches A wireless device (Fig. 4 item 9; a communication apparatus 9) comprising: a radio frequency front end module (par. 0024; The high frequency module 1) including a filter having a first portion with a passband corresponding to a first receive frequency band and a second portion with a passband corresponding to at least a portion of a first transmit aggressor frequency band (par. 0065; A transmission filter 12 indicated by “Txn” represents a transmission filter provided on a transmission path P1 for a transmission signal of Band n, and a transmission filter 12 indicated by “Tx1” represents a transmission filter provided on a transmission path P1 for a transmission signal of Band 1.), a signal path configured to couple between an antenna and the filter, the filter including an antenna-side port coupled to the signal path (par. 0048; the antenna terminal 71 is connected to the plurality of transmission filters 12 and the plurality of reception filters 2 with the first switch 51 interposed therebetween.), a receive amplifier coupled to the first portion of the filter (par. 0038; The plurality of inductors 4 are connected to the plurality of reception filters 2 and the plurality of low-noise amplifiers 3.); a transceiver coupled to the radio frequency front end module (par. 0050; The signal output terminal 73 is a terminal through which reception signals from the plurality of low-noise amplifiers 3 (i.e., located in the high frequency module 1) are output to an external circuit (for example, the signal processing circuit 92 (i.e., RFIC 93 is located in the signal processing circuit).); and an antenna coupled to the radio frequency front end module (par. 0125; The antenna 91 is connected to the antenna terminal 71 of the high frequency module 1.).
Kani fails to teach the following recited limitation. However, Mar teaches a tunable termination impedance coupled to the second portion of the filter (par. 0028; the impedance tuner circuit 100 includes an input node 102 configured to receive a radio-frequency (RF) signal 104 and an output node 106. The impedance tuner circuit 100 filters the RF signal 104 received on the input node 102 into a filtered RF signal 104F on the output node 106 depending on the selected arrangement of involvement of passive filtering components, including the switchable inductors L.sub.1-L.sub.4.). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Kani’s teachings with Mar’s teachings in order to prevent increasing resistance in the inductive paths which reduces the quality (Q) factor of the discrete inductors, thereby reducing the filter performance of the impedance tuner circuit (Mar, par. 0003).
Regarding claim 17, Kani teaches A radio frequency front end system (Fig. 1, par. 0013; a high frequency module) comprising: a filter having a first portion with a passband corresponding to a first receive frequency band and a second portion with a passband corresponding to at least a portion of a first transmit aggressor frequency band (par. 0065; A transmission filter 12 indicated by “Txn” represents a transmission filter provided on a transmission path P1 for a transmission signal of Band n, and a transmission filter 12 indicated by “Tx1” represents a transmission filter provided on a transmission path P1 for a transmission signal of Band 1.); a signal path configured to couple between an antenna and the filter, the filter including an antenna-side port coupled to the signal path (par. 0048; the antenna terminal 71 is connected to the plurality of transmission filters 12 and the plurality of reception filters 2 with the first switch 51 interposed therebetween.); and a receive amplifier coupled to the first portion of the filter (par. 0038; The plurality of inductors 4 are connected to the plurality of reception filters 2 and the plurality of low-noise amplifiers 3.).
Kani fails to teach the following recited limitation. However, Mar teaches a tunable termination impedance coupled to the second portion of the filter (par. 0028; the impedance tuner circuit 100 includes an input node 102 configured to receive a radio-frequency (RF) signal 104 and an output node 106. The impedance tuner circuit 100 filters the RF signal 104 received on the input node 102 into a filtered RF signal 104F on the output node 106 depending on the selected arrangement of involvement of passive filtering components, including the switchable inductors L.sub.1-L.sub.4.). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Kani’s teachings with Mar’s teachings in order to prevent increasing resistance in the inductive paths which reduces the quality (Q) factor of the discrete inductors, thereby reducing the filter performance of the impedance tuner circuit (Mar, par. 0003).
Conclusion
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/AYODEJI O AYOTUNDE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2649