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 11/23/10 has been considered and
placed in the application file.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1-2 and 11-121 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ahmed (U.S. 11,372,436).
Regarding claims 1 and 11, Ahmed (hereinafter, Ref~436) discloses (please see Figs. 2-5 and ) an amplifier/method (300 of Fig. 3), comprising: one or more amplifier stages (313 and/or 311 and/or 312 and/or 320 of Fig. 3) connected in cascade, wherein the one or more amplifier stages receive an analog input signal (VREF of Fig. 3) and generate a drive signal (Vout of Fig. 3); and
a current mirror output stage (312/320 of Fig. 3), wherein the current mirror output stage includes an output device (322 of Fig. 3) and a diode-connected mirror device (3121 of Fig. 3), wherein a gate of the output device is coupled to a gate of the mirror device as seen,
wherein the mirror device is coupled (via 3122 of Fig. 3) to an output (see N1 of Fig. 3) of the one or more amplifier stages to receive the drive signal, wherein the current mirror output stage provides an adjustable ratio by activation (via switch S1:S4 of Fig. 3) of one more additional devices (321 of Fig. 3) that are selectively coupled to a mirror arm and an output arm of the current mirror output stage as seen from Fig. 3, meeting claim 1.
Regarding claims 2 and 12, Ref~436 discloses the amplifier of claim 1, wherein the one or more amplifier stages further receives an analog feedback signal (see Vfb305 of Fig. 3), and further comprising a feedback connection from the output device (Vout of Fig. 3) to provide the analog feedback signal to the one or more amplifier stages as seen from Fig. 3, meeting claims 2 and 12.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-10 and 13-20 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Hieu Nguyen whose telephone number is 571-272-8577. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8-5.
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
Prosecution Insights