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 .
Remarks
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 01/06/26 has been entered.
This Office Action is in response to the amendment filed on 12/08/25. Examiner acknowledged that claims 1 and 11 are amended; claim 17 is canceled. Currently, claims 1-16 and 18-20 are pending.
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) 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koike (US 2002/0067629).
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Examiner Markup Fig. 15 Examiner Markup Fig. 2
Regarding Claim 11, Koike teaches a circuit comprising: a transistor (Fig. 17: 3) having a first current terminal, a second current terminal, and a control terminal, the first current terminal coupled to a diode and an inductor (Fig. 17: 17, 14); a current sense circuit (Fig. 17: 6) coupled to the second current terminal; and a control circuit (Fig. 17: 7) coupled to the control terminal, to the current sense circuit (Fig. 17: 7 connect to the gate terminal of 3 and current sense 6 via node 30).
Koike does not explicitly teaches in Fig. 17 the control circuit coupled to the diode, and to the inductor. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to understand that the control circuit 7 is electrically couple to the diode as well as the inductor via ground through resistor 39 and the current sense circuit 6 (see above).
Regarding Claim 12, Koike teaches the circuit of claim 11, wherein the control circuit comprises: modulation circuitry (Fig. 17: 7 provides pulse switching pulses) coupled to the current sense circuit, and to the control terminal; and a mode controller (Fig. 17: 11) coupled to the modulation circuitry.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-10 and 16, 18-20 are allowed.
Claims 13-15 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 HENRY T LUONG whose telephone number is (571)270-7008. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday: 8:00-6:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Regis Betsch can be reached at (571) 270-7101. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Henry Luong/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2844
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