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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Species II (Figs. 4-5) in the reply filed on 11/25/25 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that the search for the different species would not present a burden. This is not found persuasive because the numerous non-obvious variants between the respective species would require different search queries and would present a burden in both search and examination, and applicant has not indicated the different species are obvious variants of each other.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claims 2, 5-9, 11, and 14-18 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected species, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 11/25/25.
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 3 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In Claim 1, line 8, it appears the phrase “cover plate being connected” should instead read as --cover plate is connected-- to improve the grammatical form.
In Claim 1, lines 8-9, it appears the phrase “and being spaced apart” should instead read as --and is spaced apart-- to improve the grammatical form.
In claim 1, line 10, it appears the phrase “tuning structure being connected” should instead read as --tuning structure is connected-- to improve the grammatical form.
In Claim 3 (line 2), it appears the phrase “a slot bottom” should instead read as --the slot bottom-- since the slot bottom was previously described in claim 1.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yu et al. (US 2015/0325902) in view of Wu et al. (US 2013/0249651) and Li et al. (CN 205069822U cited by applicant and see attached translation cited by examiner).
Yu (e.g. Fig. 2) teaches a tunable dielectric filter including:
Regarding Claim 1, a housing (e.g. 104), wherein a resonant slot (e.g. the cavity inside the housing 104) is disposed on the housing, a support portion (e.g. the bottom surface of the housing 104 is a support portion) is disposed in the resonant slot (i.e. the cavity in the housing 104); a dielectric resonator (e.g. dielectric 103) mounting on the support portion, an adjustment hole (e.g. the opening in the middle of the dielectric (103) is disposed on the dielectric resonator, and the adjustment hole communicates with the bottom (e.g. see Fig. 2, the hole penetrates through to the bottom of the resonator dielectric 103); a cover plate (e.g. 102) being connected to the housing, covering an opening of the resonant slot (e.g. see Fig. 2, cover 102 is on 104 and closes the resonant slot/cavity), and being spaced apart from the dielectric resonator (see Fig. 2, 103 is spaced from 102); and a tuning structure (e.g. the screw 101 extending through the cover in Fig. 2) being connected to the cover plate and extending into the adjustment hole.
Regarding Claim 10, wherein one end of the dielectric resonator towards the support portion is provided with a plating layer (e.g. see [0003] and [00054]), and the dielectric resonator is welded to the support portion through the plating layer (e.g. see [0003]).
However, regarding claim 1, Yu does not disclose the support portion encloses to form an intermodulation groove at a slot bottom of the resonant slot; the dielectric resonator covering a groove opening of the intermodulation groove, a plurality of the adjustment holes communicate with the intermodulation groove and a tuning screw for each of the respective plurality of adjustment holes. Also, regarding Claim 10, Yu does not explicitly teach that the plating layer on the bottom of the dielectric resonator is silver.
Wu (e.g. Figs. 1-2c) provides the general teaching of providing a plurality of tuning screws in respective adjustment holes of a dielectric resonator.
Li (Fig. 1) provides the general teaching of a support portion enclosing to form an intermodulation groove (151) at the bottom of the slot/cavity and the dielectric resonator covering the groove that communicates with the adjustment hole of the resonator. Li also teaches using silver plating on the bottom of the resonator (e.g. see the Li translation, page 4 of the translation Claim 3 of Li).
Regarding Claim 1, It would have been considered obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the Yu device to have the support portion enclosing to form an intermodulation groove under the resonator such as taught by Li, because it would have provided the advantageous benefit of improving passive intermodulation performance such as generally taught by Li (e.g. see translation page 4). Additionally, it would have been considered obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the resonator to have a plurality of the adjustment holes and respective tuning screws such as generally taught by Wu, because the additional tuning screws would have provided the advantageous benefit of additional adjustability for different resonance frequencies and modes (e.g. see Wu, [0004]), thereby suggesting the obviousness of the modification. As an obvious consequence of the modification, the plural adjustment holes would be in communication with the intermodulation hole since Wu, Li and Yu all teach the adjustment hole(s) is/are through the device and Li teaches the intermodulation hole to be in communication (i.e. open to) with the adjustment hole.
Also, regarding claim 10, it would have been considered obvious and routine to one of ordinary skill in the art to have the generic or non-specific plating on the bottom of the resonator that is welded to the support as taught by Yu to have been silver plating such as taught by Li, because the selection of silver such as taught by Li would have been a mere selection of a specific known plating material for the bottom of a dielectric resonator for conductively connecting the resonator to the support as is the same purpose of both the Li and Wu plating.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4 and 12-13 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEPHEN E JONES whose telephone number is (571)272-1762. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM to 5PM.
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/Stephen E. Jones/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2843