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 § 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) 1, 6, 10-11, 16 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Damphousse (US 2019/0207611) in view of Miyagi (US 2009/0128240).
Regarding independent claims 1 and 11 and 20, Damphousse discloses a method and a multi-core voltage-controlled oscillator for oscillating signal generation, comprising:
configuring a first voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) core (118 of 202 shown in FIG 2 and 4) of a multi-core VCO (118 shown in FIG 4) based on an oscillating frequency of a second VCO core (118 of 204) of the multi-core VCO (118 shown in FIG 4), wherein the first VCO core is separate from the second VCO core (FIG 2 shows two separate VCO 118 in 202 and 204), wherein configuring the first VCO core comprises configuring a capacitor bank (408) of the first VCO core coupled
generating, via the second VCO core (118 of 204), an oscillating signal with the oscillating frequency, wherein the first VCO core is off (118 of 202 or 134 of 202 is off ¶[0027]) while the oscillating signal is generated via the second VCO core (118 of 202 or 134 of 202 is on ¶[0027]).
Damphousse does not explicitly disclose capacitor bank of the first VCO core coupled between a first output and a second output of the first VCO core.
As known in the art, an LC differential VCO has two outputs (+ and – differential output) and are used for local oscillator (LO) in a communication system, for example, Miyagi shows in FIG 2 and 6-8 an LC differential VCO having a first output (a) and a second output (b). And therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use such VCO because such a modification would have been a mere substitution of an art recognized equivalent VCO.
Regarding independent claim 20, It is noted that the intended use limitations “a wireless device (receiver and transmitter) comprising: one or more antennas (12 shown in FIG 1 of Miyagi); and a transmitter or a receiver (receiver and transmitter) coupled to the one or more antennas are shown in Miyagi and have no patentable weight.
Regarding claims 6 and 16, Damphousse discloses in FIG 1-4 the method wherein configuring the capacitor bank comprises selectively coupling, via a respective switch, each of a plurality of capacitive elements of the capacitor bank between outputs of the first VCO core (¶[0027]).
Regarding claim 10, Damphousse discloses in FIG 1-4 the method further comprising decoupling the first VCO core from one or more outputs of the multi-core VCO to turn off the first VCO core prior to generating the oscillating signal via the second VCO core (¶[0027]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5, 7-9, 13-15 and 17-19 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 Joseph Chang whose telephone number is (571)272-1759. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:00- 17:00.
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/JOSEPH CHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2849