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 .
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.
Claim(s) (1-11, 14-19, 21,23-25,27-28) is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over John (10348136).
Regarding claim 1: John discloses a sensing device (as show in figures 12a-12d of John and see associated descriptions for details), comprising:
a wireless receiver configured to receive a first radio frequency (RF) signal (as shown in figure 8a of John and see associated descriptions for details);
one or more wireless transmitters, wherein at least one wireless transmitter is configured to transmit a second RF signal, and wherein the first RF signal and the second RF signal have different frequencies (as shown in element 210 of figure 8a in John and see associated descriptions for details); and
a processing circuitry, comprising: a power harvesting circuit configured to harvest energy from the first RF signal (as shown in element 200 of figure 8a in John and see associated descriptions for details);
a clock recovery circuit configured to extract a clock signal from the first RF signal (col. 30, lines 62-67 of John);
at least one sensing electrode configured to record an electric signal as at least one of a voltage, current, and electric charge (as shown in element 224 of John and see associated descriptions for details); and
an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) communicatively coupled to the clock recovery circuit, wherein the ADC is configured to convert the electric signal into a digital signal, wherein the clock signal is used to synchronize at least one wireless transmitter with the conversion of the electrical signal into the digital signal, and wherein output from the ADC is serialized and transmitted, by a transmitter using packetizing, to an external hub (col. 21, lines 27-45 of John). Thus, John disclosed RF power harvesting device; even though, it may not per verbatim as recited. It would have been obvious to an artisan before the effective filing date of the invention was made to utilize the alternative wording or components for the same features.
Regarding claim 2: wherein the processing circuitry further comprises a control circuit configured to transmit the digital signal via the wireless transmitter in accordance with a control code (as shown in element 274 of figure 8b in John and see associated descriptions).
Regarding claim 3: wherein the analog-to-digital converter uses a successive approximation register (SAR ADC) architecture (col. 21, lines 27-45 of John).
Regarding claim 4: wherein the processing circuitry further comprises: a first low-dropout regulator (LDO) coupled to the power harvesting circuit, wherein the first LDO is configured to supply energy to the processing circuitry; and a second low-dropout regulator coupled to the power harvesting circuit configured to supply energy to the wireless transmitter (col. 26, lines 51-62 of John).
Regarding claim 5: wherein the first RF signal is modulated with the control code; or pulse width modulation-amplitude shift keying (PWM-ASK) (col. 21, limes 18-24 of John).
Regarding claim 7: wherein the first RF signal frequency is between 1 and 100 Mhz and a signal of the second RF signal frequency is between 100 and 10000 Mhz (an official notice is given to Mhz as another obvious electromagnet spectrum).
Regarding claim 9: wherein the power harvesting circuit comprises a five-stage passive rectifier (col. 42, lines 34-50 of John).
Regarding claim 11: wherein the second RF frequency signal undergoes at least one of being: transmitted, to an external wearable device;
processed and filtered on an external wearable device to reduce noise; or
converted to base-band and frequency contents below 1 Hz and higher than 10 KHz are removed (col. 34, lines 16-32 of John).
Regarding claim 14: wherein an adjustable parameter of the device is selected from the group consisting of its frequency of operation, power consumption, number of bits, and duty-cycle (col. 7, lines 3-29 of John described various power conversion process that includes bits and duty-cycle for the AC/DC conversion).
Regarding claim 15: wherein the output from the ADC is serialized through parallel-to-serial (P2S) logic are considered as obvious inherent features of analog to digital power conversion).
Regarding claim 16: further comprising a direct power oscillator and an LC oscillator (col. 26, lines 10-26 of John where John describes power conversion that includes oscillators).
Regarding claim 17: as shown in figures 8a-8b of John further comprising: a power management unit (PMU) configured to set an operating mode and maintain a minimum voltage; and a receiver circuitry block configured to provide energy from the first RF signal to the power harvesting circuit (see associated descriptions for details).
Regarding claim 18: as shown in element 224 of John wherein the wireless transmitter comprises a data modulator circuit, the data modulator circuit configured to generate the second RF signal using DC voltage received from the PMU (see associated descriptions for details).
Regarding claim 19: further comprising an N-well N-type metal- oxide-semiconductor (N-well NMOS) transistor, wherein the N-well NMOS transistor is configured to regulate the DC voltage are considered obvious component features as shown in figure 10 of John and see associated descriptions for details).
Regarding claim 21: as shown in element 28 of John wherein the PMU is configured to control the wireless transmitter to operate on a duty cycle based upon a current amount of energy stored in a storage capacitor (see associated descriptions for details).
Regarding claim 23: as shown in figures 12b-12d of John wherein the clock extraction comprises: demodulating, the first RF signal to obtain an envelope signal, wherein the demodulation is performed using at least one of an envelope detector and a self-mixing principle; filtering, using a low pass filter, the envelope signal; recovering, using a comparator, one or more crossing points between the filtered envelope signal and a reference signal; and generating, using the comparator, a clock signal from the crossing points (see associated descriptions for details).
Regarding claim 24: as shown in figure 12a of John wherein the clock extraction further comprises removing noise from the clock signal with a Schmitt trigger (see associated descriptions for details).
Regarding claim 25: as shown in element 272 of figure 8b of John wherein the clock signal is used to set rates for at least one of acquiring signal samples and wirelessly receiving data transmissions (see associated descriptions for details).
Regarding claim 27: wherein the transmitter using packetizing is configured to transmit data with an 8-bit preamble indicating a starting point of the data (col. 10, lines 28-36 of John).
Regarding claim 28: wherein operating modes are selected based on the first RF signal (col. 10, lines 22-26 of John).
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Huynh (11545993), Kim et al 910873215) and Li et al (9185646) are cited for energy harvest from wireless (RF) signal.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to K. Wong whose telephone number is (571) 272-7566.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, D. Goins can be reached at (571) 272-2957. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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K. WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2689
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