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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. JP 2022-156525, filed on 09/29/2022. Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/21/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 8-10, 14, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and (a)(2) as being anticipated by JP 2014-165724 by Takeshi et al.
Regarding claim 1, Takeshi teaches an amplifier module comprising:
an antenna including four power feed points (fig. 4 #15A with feed points 15_4, 15_5, 15_6, and 15_7); and
four power amplifiers (fig. 4 13_1, 13_2, 23_1 and 23_2),
wherein output ends of the four power amplifiers (Fig. 4 13_1, 13_2, 23_1, 23_2) are connected to the four power feed points in a one-to-one relationship, and wherein the four power feed points are arranged rotationally symmetrically around a center of the antenna when a main surface of the antenna is viewed in plan (Fig. 4).
Regarding claim 8, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to Claim 1, wherein the four power amplifiers each include a heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) (Par. 43 of provided translation; amplifying elements can be bipolar transistors).
Regarding claim 9, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to Claim 1, wherein the four power amplifiers each include a metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) (Par. 43 of provided translation; amplifying elements can be MOSFETs).
Regarding claim 10, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to Claim 1, wherein at least one of the four amplifiers includes an amplifier that operates as a class A amplifier (Par. 8 of provided translation).
Regarding claim 14, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to Claim 1, wherein at least one of the four power amplifiers includes an amplifier that operates as a class C amplifier (Par. 2 of provided translation).
Regarding claim 17, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to Claim 1, wherein the antenna is formed from a planar conductor (Par. 44 of provided translation).
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.
Claim(s) 2, 5-7, 11-13, 15-16, and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2014-165724 by Takeshi et al.
Regarding claim 2, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to claim 1, and while the phase difference of all four feed points isn’t explicitly stated, there are variable phase adjusters at the output of all four amplifiers, so offset between amplifiers can be adjusted. Although shown physically orthogonal in fig. 4, that is for drawing purposes and not drawn to scale; it’s simply a schematic that is shown for simplicity. The placement is not clear, however it’s evident there are adjustable phase shifters so the output for each amplifier and feed point can be adjusted and two adjacent feed points could have a phase difference of 90 degrees.
Regarding claim 5, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module of claim 1, wherein the antenna includes a dielectric substrate, a ground planar conductor, and a power-feed planar conductor including the four power feed points, the dielectric substrate being placed between the ground planar conductor and the power-feed planar conductor (Fig. 7 and Par. 77-78 of provided translation), and wherein a distance between each of the four power feed points and the center is λ/4, where a wavelength at the dielectric substrate of a high frequency signal input to the antenna is represented by λ (In fig. 5, where there are two amplifiers, the phase shift is by λ/2 (par. 65 of provided translation) and while not explicitly stated, in fig. 4 with four amplifiers, in order to maintain a 90 degree offset, the length has to be λ/4).
Regarding claim 6, Takeshi teaches a communication apparatus comprising: the amplifier module according to Claim 1. Takeshi doesn’t mention a signal processing circuit that processes a high frequency signal and is connected to the amplifier module, however, this setup is very well known in the art, as shown in fig. 8 of US 12494753 by Gebeyehu (the baseband processor) and is included in power amplifier circuits and communication apparatuses.
Regarding claim 7, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to claim 5, wherein the dielectric substrate is a low temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) (While not stated in Takeshi, LTCC substrates are well known in the art of antennas as taught in par. 40 US 20240243482 by Xue et al.).
Regarding claim 11, Takeshi teaching the amplifier module according to claim 1, but doesn’t specify that at least one of the four power amplifiers includes an amplifier that operates as a class AB amplifier. However, different amplifier classes are very well known in the art as shown in par. 2 of US 20240291437 by Yang et al. in which “main” amplifiers can be biased in class AB, and at least one of the four amplifiers can include an amplifier that is biased or chosen to operate in class AB.
Regarding claim 12, while Takeshi doesn’t teach that the amplifiers are Doherty amplifiers, however, US 11784611 by Naraine et al. teaches a Doherty amplifier system in fig. 6c with four antenna feed points. The class of the carrier amplifier is not stated, but it is well known in the art that a carrier amplifier can be biased in class A as taught in par. 3 of US 20230299721 by Sasaki.
Regarding claim 13, while Takeshi doesn’t teach that the amplifiers are Doherty amplifiers, however, US 11784611 by Naraine et al. teaches a Doherty amplifier system in fig. 6c with four antenna feed points. The class of the carrier amplifier is not stated, but it is well known in the art that a carrier amplifier can be biased in class AB as taught in par. 3 of US 20230299721 by Sasaki.
Regarding claim 15, Takeshi doesn’t teach that the amplifiers are Doherty amplifiers, however, class C peaking amplifiers are known in the art and US 11784611 by Naraine et al. teaches a Doherty amplifier system in fig. 6c with four antenna feed points where the peaking amplifier stage can operate as class C (Col. 18 lines 31-33).
Regarding claim 16, Takeshi teaches the amplifier modules according to claim 1, but fails to mention a loop antenna, however, different types of antennas, such as loop antennas, are well known in the art and can be used in amplifier circuits and communication apparatuses, as taught in par. 32 of US 20230198470 by Pellerano et al.
Regarding claim 19, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to claim 1, but fails to teach that the antenna includes a plurality of antennas. However, the idea of having more than one antenna is known in the art, as shown in (Fig. 3a-3b, US 11784611 by Naraine et al. and allows for things like better connectivity and simultaneously communicating multiple data streams over common frequency spectrums (Col. 15 lines 30-37).
Regarding claim 20, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to claim 19, but fails to teach that each of the plurality of antennas includes one of the four power feed points. However, this is a design choice that is well known in the art and US 11784611 by Naraine et al. teaches a multiple antenna communication device wherein outputs of different amplifiers can each be coupled to different antennas or combined with one antenna (Col. 18 lines 39-53).
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takeshi as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 11784611 by Naraine et al.
Regarding claim 3, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to claim 1, but doesn’t teach that the amplifiers are Doherty amplifiers.
However, Naraine teaches a Doherty amplifier system in fig. 6c with four antenna feed points. A person of ordinary skill in the art could use Doherty amplifiers like in Naraine in fig. 4 of Takeshi in order to improve back off efficiency.
Claim(s) 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takeshi as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of US 20230019268 by Sayama et al.
Regarding claim 18, Takeshi teaches the amplifier module according to claim 17, but fails to mention that the center of the antenna is a center of gravity of the planar conductor. However, Sayama teaches an antenna system in which an antenna’s (Fig. 10 #1) center of gravity (#26) is the center of gravity of the planar conductor (#12).
It would be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Sayama with Takeshi as this layout helps improve antenna gain (Par. 59).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 is 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NAREH SHAMIRYAN whose telephone number is (703)756-4616. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 7:00AM-4:00PM PT.
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/NAREH SHAMIRYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 2843
/ANDREA LINDGREN BALTZELL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2843