CTNF 18/668,724 CTNF 99282 Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Response to Amendment The amendments filed May 22 nd , 2026 have been entered. Claims 1-20 are pending in this application. The amendments correct typographical and grammatical errors, including correcting the term “substate” to “substrate,” which was previously set forth in the Final Office Action mailed March 26 th , 2026. The amendments do not change the scope of the claims. Response to Arguments Applicant’s arguments, see pages 6-11, filed May 22 nd , 2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claims 1-3, 7-10, and 15-17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103, have been fully considered and are persuasive. Applicant argues that the previously applied references do not teach or suggest certain limitations of the independent claims, including the interposer comprising conductive traces between respective transceivers and simultaneous bidirectional communication over a single conductive trace. Examiner has reconsidered the rejection in light of Applicant’s arguments and conducted an updated search. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further searching, a new ground(s) of rejection is made, as set forth below. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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. 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-23-aia AIA The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows: 1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art. 2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue. 3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art. 4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness. 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 1-3 , 8-10 , and 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fang (US 11,199,584), in view of Sovenyi (US 7,639,598), and further in view of Shin et al. (US 9,722,759), hereinafter Shin . Regarding claim 1 , Fang teaches a first device comprising: a transceiver to communicate with a second device over an interposer coupled to a substrate, the interposer comprising a plurality of conductive traces between respective transceivers of the first device and the second device ( Fang, Abstract, lines 5-10, “a microelectronic assembly includes an interposer electrically connected in a flip-chip configuration to an originating IC [integrated circuit] die and to a destination IC die, the substrate having multiple conductive traces for a parallel communications bus between the IC dies”; col. 1, lines 26-27, “Interconnections between the dies are formed by conductive traces on the interposer”; col. 2, lines 14-15, “multiple interposer traces coupling an originating IC die to a destination IC die”; the originating IC die and the destination IC die equate to a first device and second device, respectively ) . Fang fails to teach control logic, coupled to the transceiver, configured to: send first data to the second device over a single conductive trace of the plurality of conductive traces; simultaneously receive second data from the second device over the single conductive trace; and extract the second data from a combined signal comprising the first data and the second data. However, Sovenyi, in an analogous art, teaches send first data to the second device over a single conductive trace of the plurality of conductive traces ( Sovenyi, col. 2, lines 64-66, “A system for achieving simultaneous, full-duplex communication between two terminals over a single electrical conductor” ) ; and simultaneously receive second data from the second device over the single conductive trace ( Sovenyi, col. 2, lines 66-67 through col. 3, lines 1-8, “according to the invention comprises a first transceiver terminal T 1 having a first input for receiving a first signal x, and a second transceiver terminal T 2 having a second input for receiving a second signal y. A first communication circuit C 1 in T 1 is disposed between the first input and a point A for transmitting a signal representative of x from A to T 2 over the single electrical conductor, and a second communication circuit C 2 in T 2 is disposed between the second input and a point B for transmitting a signal representative of y from B to T 1 over the single electrical conductor” ) . Fang and Sovenyi are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because both are in the same field of communication systems. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Fang to incorporate the teachings of Sovenyi by including the functionality of sending data to a second device over a single conductive trace and simultaneously receive second data from the device. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to improving bandwidth utilization and reduce the number of cables needed to transfer information between multiple terminals and transfer information at a higher rate ( Sovenyi, col. 2, lines 45-49, “Use of the transceivers reduces the number of cables necessary for transferring information between two or more terminals at a given rate. Alternatively, they can transfer information at a higher rate than traditional circuits across the same number of cables” ). The combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, taken singly or combined, fails to teach extract the second data from a combined signal comprising the first data and the second data. However, Shin, in an analogous art teaches extract the second data from a combined signal comprising the first data and the second data ( Shin, col. 1, lines 45-50, “a receiving unit configured to receive a relay signal, which includes the uplink signal and a downlink signal… and an extraction unit configured to extract the downlink signal from the relay signal based on the uplink signal”; col. 5, lines 21-23, “the radio transceiver 110 cancels the uplink signal x 2 included in the relay signal to obtain the downlink signal x 1 ”; the uplink signal equates to a first data, the downlink signal equates to second data, the relay signal including the uplink and downlink signal equates to a combined signal, obtaining the downlink signal equates to extracting the second data, and canceling the uplink signal from relay signal equates to an extraction operation ) . Fang, Sovenyi, and Shin are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of communication systems. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi to incorporate the teachings of Shin by including the functionality of extracting second data from a combined signal comprising first and second data. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to allow for a reliable recovery of received data when transmitting and receiving data simultaneously. Regarding claim 2 , the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin, teaches the first device of claim 1, wherein the control logic is further configured to: subtract a waveform associated with the first data from a waveform associated with the second data to extract the second data from the combined signal ( Sovenyi, col. 7, lines 7-12, “the output of the circuit is the difference 2v c -v 1 between the double 2v c of the cable voltage v c and the input voltage v 1 . The result is the estimate of the input voltage v 2 of the other terminal, T 13 ”; Shin, col. 1, lines 45-50, “a receiving unit configured to receive a relay signal, which includes the uplink signal and a downlink signal… and an extraction unit configured to extract the downlink signal from the relay signal based on the uplink signal”; col. 5, lines 21-23, “the radio transceiver 110 cancels the uplink signal x 2 included in the relay signal to obtain the downlink signal x 1 ” ) . One of ordinary skill in the art would have understood that cancellation of a signal from a composite signal requires subtraction of a signal component from the composite signal to recover the remaining signal component. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi to incorporate the teachings of Shin by including the functionality of performing a subtraction operation on a combined signal. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to allow for a reliable recovery of received data when transmitting and receiving data simultaneously. Regarding claim 3 , the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin, teaches the first device of claim 1, wherein the control logic is further configured to: generate an inverse waveform associated with the first data; and combine the inverse waveform with a waveform associated with the second data to extract the second data from the combined signal ( Sovenyi, col. 7, lines 7-12, “the output of the circuit is the difference 2v c -v 1 between the double 2v c of the cable voltage v c and the input voltage v 1 . The result is the estimate of the input voltage v 2 of the other terminal, T 13 ” ) . The reference does not explicitly teach the limitation, however one of ordinary skill in that art would have understood that subtracting v 1 involves combining the composite signal 2v c with an inverse of v 1 (i.e., -v 1 ), which would result in extracting the second signal from the combined signal. Claim 8 is a method with limitations similar to the device of claim 1, and is rejected under the same rationale. Claim 9 is a method with limitations similar to the device of claim 2, and is rejected under the same rationale. Claim 10 is a method with limitations similar to the device of claim 3, and is rejected under the same rationale. Claim 15 is a system with limitations similar to the device of claim 1, and is rejected under the same rationale. Claim 16 is a system with limitations similar to the device of claim 2, and is rejected under the same rationale. Claim 17 is a system with limitations similar to the device of claim 3, and is rejected under the same rationale . 07-22-aia AIA Claim s 4, 11, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fang, in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin , as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Wang et al. (US 12,107,680), hereinafter Wang . Regarding claim 4 , the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin teaches the first device of claim 1, but fails to teach wherein the control logic is further configured to: perform one or more error correcting operations on a waveform obtained from the combined signal. However, Wang, in an analogous art, teaches wherein the control logic is further configured to: perform one or more error correcting operations on a waveform obtained from the combined signal ( Wang, col. 1, lines 57-59, "In general, techniques are described for monitoring burst errors in a forward error correction (FEC) frame transmitted in an optical signal" ) . Fang, Sovenyi, Shin, and Wang are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of communicating signals between devices. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin, to incorporate the teachings of Wang by including the functionality of performing error correction on the waveform. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to improve communication reliability, receiver sensitivity and increase transmission distance of signals ( Wang, col. 5, lines 1-9, "Noise is present on any communication channel, either electrical or optical. Degradation in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) will lead to errors within signals that may not be recoverable. Further, retransmitting corrupted signals requires time and resource allocation, leading to increasing costs. To combat this problem, forward error correction (FEC) is widely used to improve receiver sensitivity and increase transmission distance of signals over an optical network" ). Claim 11 is a method with limitations similar to the device of claim 4, and is rejected under the same rationale. Claim 18 is a system with limitations similar to the device of claim 4, and is rejected under the same rationale . 07-22-aia AIA Claim s 5, 12, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fang, in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin , as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Keeth et al. (US 10,468,382), hereinafter Keeth . Regarding claim 5 , the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin teaches the first device of claim 1, but fails to teach wherein the first data is sent along with a clock signal. However, Keeth, in an analogous art, teaches wherein the first data is sent along with a clock signal ( Keeth, col. 3, lines 19-23, " In FIG. 2, a subset of the signals includes one or more of the power signals, one or more of the data signals, one or more of the address signals, one or more of the clock signals, one or more of the control signals, or a combination of these signals" ) . Fang, Sovenyi, Shin, and Keeth are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of communicating signals between devices. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin, to incorporate the teachings of Keeth by including the functionality of transmitting data signals together with a clock signal. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to provide timing information for proper synchronization of data transmission and reception, which would improve communication reliability. Claim 12 is a method with limitations similar to the device of claim 5, and is rejected under the same rationale. Claim 19 is a system with limitations similar to the device of claim 5, and is rejected under the same rationale . 07-22-aia AIA Claim s 6, 13, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fang, in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin , as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Saibi et al. (US 2011/0317564), hereinafter Saibi . Regarding claim 6 , the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin teaches the first device of claim 1, but fails to teach wherein the control logic is further configured to: configure, during a boot process, the transceiver to remove additional signal added to the combined signal during transmission. However, Saibi, in an analogous art, teaches wherein the control logic is further configured to: configure, during a boot process, the transceiver to remove additional signal added to the combined signal during transmission ( Saibi, para. [0034], "With the parameter setting stored, further parameters may be tested, either sequentially or in parallel. Once the testing is complete, the transceiver 100 exits the calibration mode, and enters a field operation mode for normal duplex operation, at step 318. Normal duplex mode generally involves transmitting and receiving data consistent with the determined calibration parameters, at 320. The echo cancellers used in the calibration operation to generate the noise and distortion samples are then reused in the duplex mode to filter echo signals resulting along the analog transmit path" ; the calibration mode that sets parameters used in the normal operation mode to filter echo signals, or remove echo signals, occurs before normal operation, therefore occurring during a boot process ) . Fang, Sovenyi, Shin, and Saibi are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of communicating signals between devices. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin, to incorporate the teachings of Saibi by including the functionality of configuring the transceiver to remove additional signals during a boot process. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to further filter the data ( Saibi, para. [0034], "With the parameter setting stored, further parameters may be tested, either sequentially or in parallel. Once the testing is complete, the transceiver 100 exits the calibration mode, and enters a field operation mode for normal duplex operation, at step 318. Normal duplex mode generally involves transmitting and receiving data consistent with the determined calibration parameters, at 320. The echo cancellers used in the calibration operation to generate the noise and distortion samples are then reused in the duplex mode to filter echo signals resulting along the analog transmit path" ). Claim 13 is a method with limitations similar to the device of claim 6, and is rejected under the same rationale. Claim 20 is a system with limitations similar to the device of claim 6, and is rejected under the same rationale . 07-22-aia AIA Claim s 7 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fang, in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin , as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Huang et al. (US 7,864,718), hereinafter Huang . Regarding claim 7 , the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin, teaches the first device of claim 1, but fails to teach wherein the control logic is further configured to calibrate the transceiver by performing operations that comprise: generating a first combined waveform comprising third data generated by the first device and fourth data generated by the second device; generating a second combined waveform comprising fifth data generated by the first device and sixth data generated by the second device; determining a delta value between the first combined waveform and the second combined waveform; and determining a corrective waveform to apply to the second combined waveform. However, Huang, in an analogous art, teaches wherein the control logic is further configured to calibrate the transceiver by performing operations that comprise: generating a first combined waveform comprising third data generated by the first device and fourth data generated by the second device; generating a second combined waveform comprising fifth data generated by the first device and sixth data generated by the second device; determining a delta value between the first combined waveform and the second combined waveform; and determining a corrective waveform to apply to the second combined waveform ( Huang, col. 4, lines 46-53, "the echo cancellation signal generator 540 is a digital low pass filter as shown in FIG. 4, the echo cancellation device can utilize the control signal to dynamically adjust the finite impulse response (FIR) coefficients or the infinite impulse response (IIR) coefficients of the digital low pass filter according to the different characteristics of the circuit components and the network environment in order to obtain optimal echo cancellation performance" ; teaches adapting the echo canceler that adjust coefficients of a control signal ) . Fang, Sovenyi, Shin, and Huang are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of communication systems. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Fang in view of Sovenyi, further in view of Shin, to incorporate the teachings of Huang by including the functionality of generating combined waveforms, determining a delta value between two combined waveforms, and determining a corrective waveform to apply to one of the combined waveforms. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to more precisely eliminate unwanted data, or noise, from the transmitted signal ( Huang, col. 4, lines 36-45, " the values will fluctuate and change when transmitting/receiving data. In order to more precisely eliminate the echo in the second embodiment of the present invention, the echo' cancellation device further comprises an echo residue detector 510 for detecting the echo residue at the receiver section. The echo residue detector 510 generates a control signal according to the detected echo residue and outputs the control signal to the echo cancellation signal generator 540 in order to form a feedback loop" ). Claim 14 is a method with limitations similar to the device of claim 7, and is rejected under the same rationale . Conclusion 07-96 AIA The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Lai et al. (US 9,325,420) teaches chip-to-chip communication using transceivers coupled through an interposer/substrate structure. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GRACE V BRADEN whose telephone number is (703)756-5381. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri: 9AM-5:30 PM ET. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Albert Decady can be reached at (571) 272-3819. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /G.V.B./Examiner, Art Unit 2112 /ALBERT DECADY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 2 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 3 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 4 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 5 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 6 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 7 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 8 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 9 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 10 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 11 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 12 Art Unit: 2112 Application/Control Number: 18/668,724 Page 13 Art Unit: 2112
Prosecution Insights