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 1-20 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.
Claims 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Volatier et al. US 2008/0129416.
As per claims 1-3, Volatier et al. discloses in Fig. 9 an acoustic resonator structure (e.g. switchable filter 500) comprising:
as per claim 1, a ferroelectric coupling layer (e.g. electrostrictive layers 110a and 110b; As stated in Paragraph 41, the electrostrictive material is barium titanate, which is a well-known ferroelectric material.) configured to tune a band-pass frequency range in response to receiving a tuning voltage (Paragraphs 68-69; DC control voltage DC2 adjusts a pass band (i.e. “tune a band-pass frequency range”) of the filter.); and a pair of acoustic resonators (e.g. resonators 118a and 118b) coupled to each other via the ferroelectric coupling layer (Paragraph 63; Resonators 118a and 118b are coupled to one another through layers 116 and resonators 108a and 108b which comprise the defined “ferroelectric coupling layer”.) and interconnected between an input port (e.g. input Vin) and an output port (e.g. output Vout) to: block a signal between the input port and the output port inside the band-pass frequency range; and pass the signal from the input port to the output port outside the band-pass frequency range (In Paragraph 26 of Applicant’s instant specification, the Applicant states that “band-pass frequency range” defines a frequency range where the signal is blocked and “band-stop frequency range” defines a frequency range where the signal is passed. The filter 500 functions as a bandpass filter, where signals within the pass band are blocked (i.e. passed) and signals outside the pass band are passed (i.e. blocked).);
as per claim 2, wherein the pair of acoustic resonators comprising: a first acoustic resonator (e.g. resonator 118a) comprising a first electrode (e.g. electrode 124a), a second electrode (e.g. electrode 122a), and a first piezoelectric layer (e.g. piezoelectric layer 120a) provided between the first electrode and the second electrode; and a second acoustic resonator (e.g. resonator 118b) comprising a third electrode (e.g. electrode 124b), a fourth electrode (e.g. electrode 122b), and a second piezoelectric layer (e.g. piezoelectric layer 120b) provided between the third electrode and the fourth electrode; and
as per claim 3, the first electrode and the third electrode are connected to the input port (Layers 124a and 124b are electrically connected to Vin.); the second electrode and the fourth electrode are connected to the output port (Layers 122a and 122b are electrically connected to Vout.); and the first piezoelectric layer and the second piezoelectric layer are made with materials having inverted polarities (Paragraph 66; Resonators 118a and 118b have inverted properties (i.e. “polarities”).).
Claims 5, 14, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Khlat et al. US 2019/0326944.
As per claims 5, 14, and 20, Khlat et al. discloses a wireless device (Paragraph 3, mobile communication devices) comprising a tunable single-input dual-output (SIDO) acoustic filter circuit (Fig. 2b, diplexer 10a which includes acoustic filters 68 and 70 as stated in Paragraph 39) and a method for operating the SIDO filter circuit comprising:
as per claims 5, 14, and 20, an input circuit (e.g. coupler 16) configured to receive a signal (e.g. receive signal 62) and output the signal in a band-pass frequency range (The coupler 16 outputs a signal 64I in a band pass frequency range of the diplexer 10a.); an output circuit (e.g. coupler 18) configured to output the signal in a band-stop frequency range outside the band-pass frequency range (The coupler 18 outputs a signal outside of the band pass frequency range to ground 54.); and an in-phase path (e.g. bandstop filter 68) and a quadrature path (e.g. bandstop filter 70) provided in parallel between the input circuit and the output circuit and each configured to: block the signal in the band-pass frequency range to thereby cause the signal to be outputted from the input circuit; and pass the signal in the band-stop frequency range to thereby cause the signal to be outputted from the output circuit (In Paragraph 26 of Applicant’s instant specification, the Applicant states that “band-pass frequency range” defines a frequency range where the signal is blocked and “band-stop frequency range” defines a frequency range where the signal is passed. Each of the bandpass filters 68 and 70 function in the following manner: signals within the pass band are blocked (i.e. passed) and signals outside the pass band are passed (i.e. blocked).).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 6-13, and 15-19 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
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/RAKESH B PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2843