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 .
Status of Application
This communication is responsive to the applicant's application filed 07/04/2024.
Claims 1-10 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, and 8-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Tanaka et al (US-2013/0070951, hereinafter, Tanaka).
Regarding claim 1, Tanaka discloses a microphone (Figs. 1, 3, 7), comprising: a housing (1); a printed circuit board assembled with the housing for forming a first cavity (121) and a second cavity (122) communicating with the first cavity (Fig. 3); a first chip component fixed with a side of the printed circuit board close to the housing and located in the first cavity, including a first ASIC chip (14) and a first MEMS chip (13); a second chip component fixed with the side of the printed circuit board close to the housing and located in the second cavity, including a second ASIC chip (16) and a second MEMS chip (15) (see Fig. 7); and a first metal layer fixed with the side of the printed circuit board close to the housing and surrounding the first chip component and the second chip component; wherein the housing is fixed with a side of the first metal layer away from the printed circuit board (see Fig. 14, para [0129]-[0133]).
Regarding claim 8, see Fig. 14, and para [0131].
Regarding claim 9, see Figs. 2 and 3.
Regarding claim 10, see Fig. 2 and 2 with holes 21, 22, 23, and 25.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-7 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.
The following is an Examiner's Statement of Reasons for Allowance:
The closest prior art of Tanaka fails to disclose the limitations as recited in dependent claim 2.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Ghidoni et al, Ye, Miller et al, Zeng et al, Wang et al, and Gupta et al disclose various microphones including MEMS chip and ASIC chip.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to XU MEI whose telephone number is (571)272-7523. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 10-6:30 est.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vivian Chin can be reached on 571-272-7848. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/XU MEI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2695 01/06/2026
Prosecution Insights