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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1 (and 14) recite multiple instances of “first,” “second,” etc. transistors assigned to a CAM cell or compensation CAM cell. This is improper antecedent basis (See below).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 are thought to be allowable pending Applicant’s resolving of the issues above.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for indication of possible allowability.
Regarding claims 1 and 14, while the prior art teaches various embodiments of CAM cells including the recited 12 transistors (see Chen for example, 101 and 102 in view of Figures 1 and 2), the prior art fails to teach or reasonably suggest in combination all of the features of the claim including this claimed transistor configuration wherein the compensation CAM cell stores the same bit value as stored in the CAM cell combined with the compensation CAM configured to cancel leakage current.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant’s amendments are insufficient. The claims cannot contain two citations to “a first transistor” for example which are each referring to different transistors (see line 4 and line 8). Applicant made no changes to claim 14, so it is unclear how Applicant expected the rejection to be overcome.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 DOUGLAS KING whose telephone number is (571)272-2311. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:00AM-5:30PM.
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/DOUGLAS KING/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2824