Prosecution Insights
Last updated: August 17, 2026
Application No. 18/622,519

IMPEDANCE CONTROL IN MERGED STACKED FET AMPLIFIERS

Non-Final OA §102
Filed
Mar 29, 2024
Priority
Sep 21, 2020 — EU 20197129.8 +1 more
Examiner
NGUYEN, HIEU P
Art Unit
2843
Tech Center
2800 — Semiconductors & Electrical Systems
Assignee
pSemi Corporation
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
92%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
0m
Est. Remaining
97%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 92% — above average
92%
Career Allowance Rate
1139 granted / 1237 resolved
+24.1% vs TC avg
Moderate +5% lift
Without
With
+5.2%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Fast prosecutor
1y 10m
Avg Prosecution
20 currently pending
Career history
1252
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
0.6%
-39.4% vs TC avg
§103
55.7%
+15.7% vs TC avg
§102
28.2%
-11.8% vs TC avg
§112
5.3%
-34.7% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 1237 resolved cases

Office Action

§102
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 08/01/2024 & 05/30/2026 has been considered and placed in the application file. Double Patenting Claims 2-24 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-19 of U.S. Patent No. 11,973,470. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because all of the limitations/features of the present claims are present in the patented claims. 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 2, 5-6 and 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Su et al. (U.S. 2014/0043102) . Regarding claim 2, Su et al. (hereinafter, Ref~102) discloses (please see Fig. 2 and related text for details) an amplifier circuit (200 of Fig. 2), comprising: a stacked arrangement of a plurality of transistors (M1:M4 of Fig. 2) comprising an input transistor (M4 of Fig. 2) and one or more stack transistors (e.g., M1 of Fig. 2); and one or more compensation networks (formed by capacitors and/or resistors and/or inductor of Fig. 2), each connected between a gate of a respective stack transistor of the one or more stack transistors and a reference ground (please note that at least each of said elements/components having one terminal directly or indirectly coupled to ground as seen); wherein: each compensation network comprises a resistive-capacitive network (e.g., R4/C1 of Fig. 2) comprising at least a capacitor (C1 of Fig. 2); and a resistive-inductive network (e.g., R1/L2 of Fig. 2) comprising at least an inductor (L2 of Fig. 2), and the capacitor (C1 of Fig. 2) is in series connection with the resistive-inductive network, meeting claim 2. Regarding claim 5, Ref~102 discloses the amplifier circuit according to claim 2, wherein: the resistive-capacitive network further comprises a first resistor (R4 of Fig. 2) in series connection with the capacitor (C1 of Fig. 2), meeting claim 5. Regarding claim 6, Ref~102 discloses the amplifier circuit according to claim 5, wherein: the first resistor (R4 of Fig. 2) is arranged in series connection between the capacitor (C1 of Fig. 2) and the inductor (L2 of Fig. 2), meeting claim 6. Regarding claim 21, Ref~102 discloses (see Fig. 1) a communication system for communication over a plurality of frequency bands as described in paragraph [0016], the communication system comprising the amplifier circuit of claim 2, meeting claim 21. Regarding claim 22, Ref~102 discloses the communication system of claim 25, wherein: the plurality of frequency bands span over a frequency range from about 1 GHz to about 20 GHz as described in paragraph [0016], meeting claim 22. Regarding claim 23, Ref~102 discloses the communication system of claim 25, wherein: the plurality of frequency bands span over a frequency range from about 1 GHz to about 100 GHz as described in paragraph [0016], meeting claim 23. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 3-4, 7-20 and 24 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 P NGUYEN whose telephone number is 571-272-8577. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 8:30AM-6:00PM. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, YOUNGHUIE HAN (Jessica) can be reached on 571-272-2078. 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
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Prosecution Timeline

Mar 29, 2024
Application Filed
Jul 28, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §102 (current)

Precedent Cases

Applications granted by this same examiner with similar technology

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2y 9m to grant Granted Aug 11, 2026
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Patent 12695429
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Patent 12695516
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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
92%
Grant Probability
97%
With Interview (+5.2%)
1y 10m (~0m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 1237 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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