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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention III in the reply filed February 4, 2026 is acknowledged. Claims 1-15 drawn to the non-elected invention(s) have been withdrawn from examination for patentability. Independent claims 1 and 9 do not read on the elected invention by failing to recite all of the features of the injection multiplication circuitry recited in claim 16 (e.g., generate an injection current responsive to amplitudes of the second clock signal, etc.).
Specification
The Abstract stating “An example apparatus includes: first” uses a phrase which can be implied; the phrase should be changed to “First”.
A new Abstract with an amendment to remove such an implied phrase is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text.
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 of this title, 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 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 6,175,285 to Gabara.
With respect to claim 16, Gabara discloses in Fig. 6 an apparatus comprising:
clock multiplier circuitry (e.g., a clock multiplier generating INJECTED CLOCK SIGNAL as discussed below) configured to multiply a frequency of a first clock signal to generate a second clock signal (e.g., INJECTED CLOCK SIGNAL); and
injection multiplication circuitry (e.g., the Fig. 6 circuit) coupled to the clock multiplier circuitry, the injection multiplication circuitry (e.g., the Fig. 6 circuit) configured to:
generate an injection current (e.g., current through 203c-203d) responsive to amplitudes of the second clock signal (e.g., INJECTED CLOCK SIGNAL);
modify a resonant frequency (e.g., INJECTED CLOCK SIGNAL modifies/controls the frequency of CLOCK signals (e.g., as shown in Fig. 5)) of the injection multiplication circuitry by supplying the injection current (e.g., current through 203c-203d); and
generate a third clock signal (e.g., CLOCK signals (e.g., as shown in Fig. 5) output across 302) having a frequency set by the resonant frequency. Gabara fails to disclose that a clock multiplier circuitry multiplies a frequency of a first clock signal to generate a second clock signal. However, it was notoriously well known to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that a clock signal may be generated using a clock multiplier circuitry; an official notice of the foregoing fact is hereby taken. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to generate INJECTED CLOCK SIGNAL in Fig. 6 of Gabara by using the notoriously well-known method because the generation of INJECTED CLOCK SIGNAL in Fig. 6 of Gabara requires a specific implementation in fabrication and the notoriously well-known method provides such a specific implementation.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 17-20 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 Jung KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-7964. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 9AM to 5:30PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Lincoln Donovan, can be reached at (571)272-1988. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JUNG KIM/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2842