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.
In claim 1, the statement “second point, thicknesses of the mass addition” is idiomatic. It is not clear if the thicknesses direction is related to the first and second point or if thicknesses direction is related to the mass addition film.
Also, the statement “the pair of gap regions” lack antecedent basis. The statement “at at” needs to be corrected.
Claims 2 – 20 are rejected due to their dependency on claim 1.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4 – 6, 9 – 15, 17 – 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nagatomo et al (WO 2021/060523).
The Office Action will refer to the US equivalent Document US 2022/0216842 for English translation purposes.
Nagatomo et al discloses regarding,
Claim 1, An acoustic wave device comprising: a support including a support substrate 8; a piezoelectric layer 2 on the support and including lithium niobate or lithium tantalate (see abstract) ; and an interdigital transducer (IDT) electrode on the piezoelectric layer (Figs. 1A, 2) and including a pair of busbars 5, 6 and a plurality of electrode fingers 3, 4; wherein an acoustic reflection portion is provided at a position overlapping at least a portion of the IDT electrode in plan view viewed in a laminating direction of the support and the piezoelectric layer (Fig. 21); d/p is about 0.5 or less [0047, 0007], where d is a thickness of the piezoelectric layer and p is a center-to-center distance between the electrode fingers adjacent to each other [0047]; some electrode fingers among the plurality of electrode fingers are connected to one of the pair of busbars of the IDT electrode (Fig. 1A), remaining electrode fingers among the plurality of electrode fingers are connected to another of the pair of busbars (Fig. 1B), and the some of the electrode fingers connected to the one of the pair of busbars and the remaining of the electrode fingers connected to the another of the pair of busbars are interdigitated with each other (Figs. 1A, 1B); where a direction in which the adjacent electrode fingers face each other is an electrode finger facing direction, a region in which the adjacent electrode fingers overlap each other when viewed in the electrode finger facing direction is an intersecting region, and where a direction in which the plurality of electrode fingers extend is an electrode finger extending direction, the intersecting region includes a central region and a pair of edge regions sandwiching the central region in the electrode finger extending direction (Figs. 1A, 1B, 12), and edge regions located between the intersecting region and the pair of busbars; and at least one mass addition film 10 is provided in at least one of the pair of edge regions or the pair of gap regions (see Fig. 2), and where any two points, in the electrode finger facing direction, of a portion in which the mass addition film is located are a first point and a second point, thicknesses of the mass addition film at at least a pair of the first point and the second point are different from each other (since any two points can be chosen, the points can be different from each other; see Figs. 2, 13, 17, 21, 23, 24).
Claim 4, the at least one mass addition film 10 is provided over one of the pair of edge regions and one of the pair of gap regions and over another of the pair of edge regions and another of the pair of gap regions (Figs. 1A, 2, 19, 21).
Claim 5, each of the plurality of electrode fingers includes a first surface and a second surface facing each other, the second surface is on a piezoelectric layer side, and the at least one mass addition film is provided on the first surfaces of the plurality of electrode fingers (Figs. 1A, 2, 19, 21).
Claim 6, each of the plurality of electrode fingers includes a first surface and a second surface facing each other, the second surface is on a piezoelectric layer side, and the at least one mass addition film is provided between the second surfaces of the plurality of electrode fingers and the piezoelectric layer (Figs. 1A, 1B).
Claim 9, the mass addition film 10 is continuously provided in a region overlapping the plurality of electrode fingers and overlapping a region between the electrode fingers in plan view (see Figs. 2, 18, 19, 22).
Claim 11, the mass addition film includes at least one of silicon oxide [0074, 0048], tungsten oxide, niobium oxide, tantalum oxide, or hafnium oxide.
Claim 12, acoustic reflection portion is a cavity portion, and a portion of the support and a portion of the piezoelectric layer face each other with the cavity portion interposed therebetween (see Fig. 24).
Claim 13, the acoustic reflection portion includes an acoustic reflection film including a high acoustic impedance layer 32b, 32d having a relatively high acoustic impedance and a low acoustic impedance layer 32a, 32c, 32e having a relatively low acoustic impedance; and at least a portion of the support and at least a portion of the piezoelectric layer face each other with the acoustic reflection film interposed therebetween (see Fig. 31).
Claim 14, d/p is about 0.24 or less [0007, 0041].
Claim 15, an excitation region is a region in which the adjacent electrode fingers overlap each other when viewed in the electrode finger facing direction and is a region between centers of the adjacent electrode fingers; and MR ≤ about 1.75(d/p) + 0.075 is satisfied, where MR is a metallization ratio of the plurality of electrode fingers to the excitation region [0096].
Claim 17, an insulating layer 7 is provided between the support substrate 8 and the piezoelectric layer 2 (see Fig. 1A).
Claim 18, the support substrate includes silicon or aluminum oxide [0053].
Claim 19, the mass addition film includes silicon oxide, tungsten oxide, niobium oxide, tantalum oxide, or hafnium oxide [0048, 0078].
Claim 20, the mass addition film has a strip shape (see Figs. 16, 18, 22).
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) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagatomo et al in view Ordinary Skill in the Art.
Nagatomo et al discloses all of the elements above. Furthermore, Nagatomo et al discloses regarding,
Claim 16, Euler angles (φ, θ, ψ) of the lithium niobate layer or the lithium tantalate layer as the piezoelectric layer are in a range of Expression (1), Expression (2), or Expression (3): (0° ± 10°, 0° to 20°, any ψ) ... Expression (1); (0° ± 10°, 20° to 80°, 0° to 60°(1 - (θ - 50)2/900)1/2) or (0° ± 10°, 20° to 80°, [180° - 60°(1 - (θ - 50)2/900)1/2] to 180°) ... Expression (2); and (0° ± 10°, [180° - 30°(1 - (ψ - 90)2/8100)1/2] to 180°, any ψ) ... Expression (3) (see paragraph 0096).
It is further noted that it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to come with those optimum ranges for the Euler angles that the applicant discloses in order to increase the resonance characteristics of an acoustic wave device, since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 3, 7, 8, 10 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 and overcoming the 112 rejection noted above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Julio C. Gonzalez whose telephone number is (571)272-2024. The examiner can normally be reached M-F.
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/Julio C. Gonzalez/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2831
September 16, 2026
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