DETAILED ACTION
Notice to Applicant
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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.
Claims 1-19 are pending.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 2, and 11 are objected to because of the following informalities: The following changes need to be made to improve claim language clarity and avoid potential 112 issues therein:
On line 14 of claims 1 and 11, change each occurrence of “the electrode fingers” to --between electrode fingers of the at least one pair of electrode fingers--.
On line 16 of claims 1 and 11, change each occurrence of “the electrode finger” to --one electrode finger of the at least one pair of electrode fingers--.
On lines 23-24 and 25 of claim 1; line 2 of claim 2; and lines 24-25 and 26 of claim 11, change each occurrence of “the electrode finger” to --the one electrode finger--.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 11-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kimura et al. US 2022/0216849, as cited by the Applicant.
As per claims 11-16, Kimura et al. discloses in Fig. 17 an acoustic wave device (e.g. acoustic wave device 81) comprising:
as per claim 11, a piezoelectric substrate (e.g. piezoelectric layer 2, insulation layer 7, and support 8) including a support (e.g. insulation layer 7 and support 8) that includes a support substrate (e.g. support member 8), and a piezoelectric layer (e.g. piezoelectric layer 2) that is provided on the support and includes lithium tantalate or lithium niobate (Abstract; The piezoelectric layer is made of lithium niobate or lithium tantalate.); a functional electrode (related Fig. 1a and Fig. 17, electrodes 3 and 4) provided on the piezoelectric layer and including at least one pair of electrode fingers (related Fig. 1a; Electrodes 3 and 4 form at least one pair of electrode fingers.); and a dielectric film (e.g. protective film 22) provided on the piezoelectric layer to cover the at least one pair of electrode fingers; wherein an acoustic reflection portion (e.g. air gap 9) overlaps at least a portion of the functional electrode in plan view seen along a laminating direction of the support and the piezoelectric layer (Air gap 9 overlaps the electrodes 3 and 4 along a vertical laminating direction of the support 8 and piezoelectric layer 2.); in a case where a thickness of the piezoelectric layer is d and a center-to-center distance between electrode fingers of the at least one pair of electrode fingers adjacent to each other is p, d/p is about 0.5 or less (Paragraph 89; d/p is about 0.5 or less); one electrode finger of the at least one pair of electrode fingers includes a first surface and a second surface that face each other in a thickness direction (e.g. top and bottom surfaces respectively of electrode 3), a side surface (e.g. left surface of electrode 3) that is connected to the first surface and the second surface, and an electrode finger ridge portion (Annotated Fig. 17 below, portion annotated as A) in which the side surface and the first surface are connected to each other (The left surface of electrode 3 is connected to the top surface of electrode 3 via the portion annotated as A.), the second surface being located on a piezoelectric layer side (The bottom surface of electrode 3 is on a side that faces piezoelectric layer 2, thus is necessarily located “on a piezoelectric layer side”.); the dielectric film includes an electrode finger surface cover portion (Annotated Fig. 17 below, portion annotated as B) that covers the first surface of the one electrode finger, a side surface cover portion (Annotated Fig. 17 below, portion annotated as C) that covers the side surface of the electrode finger, and a dielectric film ridge portion (Annotated Fig. 17 below, portion annotated as D) in which the side surface cover portion and the electrode finger surface cover portion are connected to each other; and the electrode finger ridge portion has a linear shape (Annotated Fig. 17 below; The portion annotated as A has a linear shape.);
as per claim 12, wherein the functional electrode is an interdigital transducer electrode including a plurality of pairs of the electrode fingers (Paragraphs 43 and 52; The electrodes 3 and 4 are IDTs which include a plurality of pairs of fingers interdigitated as shown in related Fig. 1a.);
as per claim 13, wherein d/p is about 0.24 or less (Paragraph 47, d/p is about 0.24 or less);
as per claim 14, wherein a region in which the adjacent electrode fingers overlap each other when seen from a direction in which the adjacent electrode fingers face each other is an excitation region, and in a case where a metallization ratio of the at least one pair of electrode fingers to the excitation region is MR, MR ≤ about 1.75(d/p) + 0.075 is satisfied (Paragraph 71, MR ≤ about 1.75(d/p) + 0.075 is satisfied);
as per claim 15, wherein Euler angles of the lithium niobate or the lithium tantalate of the piezoelectric layer are in the range of … (Paragraph 72); and
as per claim 16, wherein the acoustic reflection portion includes a cavity portion (e.g. air gap 9), and the support and the piezoelectric layer are positioned such that a portion of the support and a portion of the piezoelectric layer face each other with the cavity portion interposed between the support and the piezoelectric layer (The air gap 9 is disposed between the support 8 and the piezoelectric layer 2.).
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However, Kimura et al. does not disclose the dielectric film ridge portion having a curved shape.
Kimura et al. discloses the dielectric film 10 having a linear shape and further discloses in Paragraph 36 therein that a configuration of each of the embodiments can be partially replaced or combined with other configurations of different preferred embodiments. Kimura et al. discloses in another embodiment in Fig. 24a an acoustic wave device 1 including a dielectric film 10 having a top surface thereof having an irregular curved shape. Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have alternatively designed the dielectric film 10 to have had an irregular curved top surface instead of a linear shape as being an obvious design consideration of yielding expected results based on the exemplary teachings of Kimura et al. As an obvious consequence of the modification, the combination would have necessarily included the dielectric film ridge portion having a curved shape.
Claims 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kimura et al. US 2022/0216849, as cited by the Applicant, and Plesski et al. US 2019/0386637, both taken in combination.
As per claims 17-19, Plesski et al. discloses in Fig. 12 a filter (e.g. bandpass filter 1200) comprising an acoustic wave device which is a ladder filter (e.g. ladder filter), wherein the acoustic wave device defines a parallel arm resonator (e.g. parallel arm resonator 1220a) of the ladder filter.
However, Plesski et al. does not disclose the acoustic wave device being the acoustic wave device according to claim 11.
Kimura et al. taken in combination discloses the acoustic wave device according to claim 11 (See above explanation which has not been repeated for the sake of brevity.). Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have replaced each of the generic acoustic resonators of Plesski et al. with the specific acoustic wave device of Kimura et al. as being obvious art substitutions of equivalents. As an obvious consequence of the modification, the combination would have necessarily included the acoustic wave device being the acoustic wave device according to claim 11.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-10 are allowed. As per claim 1, Kimura et al. US 2022/0216849, as cited by the Applicant, discloses an acoustic wave device comprising all of the limitations recited therein EXCEPT a curvature radius of at least a portion of the dielectric film ridge portion is larger than a curvature radius of at least a portion of the electrode finger ridge portion.
Conclusion
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/RAKESH B PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2843
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