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 .
This Office Action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on April 24, 2024 and the preliminary amendment concurrently filed therewith. In virtue of this preliminary amendment, claims 1-25 are now pending in the instant application.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/06/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The title of the invention of “RADIO” is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
The following title is suggested: “RADIO ANTENNA DEVICE” OR “RADIO FREQUENCY TRANSCEIVER CIRCUIT”
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 19 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1, in line 14, --,-- should be inserted after “radio signals”
Claim 1, in line 14, --wherein-- should be inserted before “the at”
Claim 19, in line 18, --,-- should be inserted after “radio signals”
Claim 19, in line 19, --wherein-- should be inserted before “the at”
Appropriate correction is required.
Claims 2-18 and 20-22 are also objected as being dependent upon rejected claims 1 and 19, respectively.
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, 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 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mansha et al. (US 2023/0213811) in view of Mahanfar et al. (US 2019/0252801).
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With respect to claim 23, Mansha discloses in figures 1 and 13 an antenna assembly comprising: a liquid crystal (LC) phase shift layer (LCL, e.g., a LC phase shift layer) comprising a plurality of individually addressable LC pixels (P1-P8, e.g., pixels), wherein a path length (paragraph 0063, e.g., having first and second electrode lengths thereof) of each corresponding LC pixel of the plurality of individually addressable LC pixels varies as a function of a voltage applied across the corresponding LC pixel (paragraph 0063, e.g., “liquid crystals included in different portions of the liquid crystal layer 106 may be configured to be oriented differently by applying a common voltage to the first electrode and different voltages to each of the plurality of second electrodes”); and one or more planar antennae formed of metal (1318, e.g. a substrate formed as a planar antennae including aluminum antenna patches 1314 thereof), each planar antenna of the one or more planar antennae arranged to at least one of receive or transmit radio signals through the LC phase shift layer (figure 13 shows the antenna patches 1314 configured to receive or transmit the radio signals through the LC layer thereof).
Mansha does not explicitly disclose that wherein each planar antenna of the one or more planar antennae is configured for corresponding radio signal having a frequency within a range from about 5 GHz to about 300 GHz.
Mahanfar discloses in figure 1G an antenna assembly comprising a phase shift layer (140) and a planar antenna layer (120), wherein each planar antenna of the one or more planar antennae is configured for corresponding radio signal having a frequency within a range from about 5 GHz to about 300 GHz (see paragraphs 0206-0207, e.g., 10.7 GHz to 11.8 GHz).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the antenna device of Mansha with a predetermined frequency range operations thereof as taught by Mahanfar for the purpose of improving a minimum return loss signals occurring at different frequency of operations thereof since this configuration for the stated purpose would have been obvious as evidenced by the teaching of Mahanfar (see paragraph 0206-0207).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 25 is allowed.
Claims 1-22 would be allowable if corrected to overcome the objections set for the above.
Claim 24 is 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Prior art of record fails to disclose or fairly suggest the following limitations:
A method comprising: … wherein … “each transistor is configured to control a corresponding voltage across a corresponding storage capacitor; each storage capacitor is connected across a respective LC pixel of the plurality of individually addressable LC pixels; and the radio further comprises a radio frequency transceiver circuit connected to the one or more planar antennae”, in combination with the remaining claimed limitations as claimed in independent claim 25.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Prior art Xi et al. – US 2021/0328355
Prior art Rodriguez De Luis et al. – US 2019/0252774
Prior art Petersson et al. – US 2018/0026693
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/TUNG X LE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2845 April 21, 2026
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