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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement filed on 08/01/2024 has been considered and
placed in the application file.
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.
Claims 1-11, 15-16 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mitake (U.S. 2016/0268668) in view of Greenway (U.S. 4,121,180).
Regarding claim 1, Mitake (hereinafter, Ref~668) discloses (e.g., please see Figs. 1-4 and related for details) a directional coupler that is capable of being employed to convert between balanced and unbalanced signals. Specifically, Greenway discloses (please see Figs. 1-5) an analogous circuit, namely a directional coupler along with the teaching that the directional coupler circuit can be configured to convert between balanced signals and unbalanced signals as descried in col. 5, between lines 20-25, thus Ref~668 along with said teaching would be capable of supporting the claimed a balanced-to-unbalanced transformer circuit (11 of Fig. 1 of Ref~668) comprising:
a transmission line (12 and/or 13 of Fig. 1 of Ref~668) including a main line (e.g., 12a and/or 12b of Fig. 1) and a sub-line (13a and/or 13b of Fig. 1) which are coupled to each other, wherein the main line comprises at least one wiring line, and the sub-line comprises a plurality of wiring lines connected in parallel to one another, the plurality of wiring lines being other than the at least one wiring line, and each of the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line is coupled to the at least one wiring line of the main line as seen, meeting claim 1.
Regarding claim 2, Ref~668 discloses the same structure/configuration, namely the balanced-to-unbalanced transformer circuit according to Claim 1, wherein each of the at least one wiring line of the main line and the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line is in a multilayer wiring substrate, and the at least one wiring line of the main line is interposed between two of the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line in a thickness direction of the multilayer wiring substrate as described in the disclosure, see paragraphs [0023-0029], meeting claim 2.
Regarding claim 3, Ref~668 discloses the balanced-to-unbalanced transformer circuit according to Claim 1, wherein each of the at least one wiring line of the main line and the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line is in a multilayer wiring substrate as described, for instance, in paragraph [0023-0029]. Ref~668 supports the claimed “two of the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line are on both sides of the at least one wiring line of the main line in plan view of the multilayer wiring substrate”, since the wiring line of the main line (12a of Fig. 1 is disposed between the sub-line 13a and 13b of Fig. 1). In addition, these are normal design parameters/features in the field depending on custom specifications, meeting claim 3.
Regarding claim 4, Ref~668 does not expressly teach “wherein the at least one wiring line of the main line has a width smaller than the width of each of the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line”. However, these are normal design parameters/features in the field depending on custom specifications, meeting claim 4.
Regarding claim 5, Ref~668 discloses the balanced-to-unbalanced transformer circuit according to Claim 1, wherein the at least one wiring line (12a and/or 12b of Fig. 1) of the main line comprises a plurality of wiring lines connected in parallel to one another, the plurality of wiring lines of the main line is less than or equal to, in count, the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line, and at least one of the plurality of wiring lines of the main line is coupled to two of the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line as seen from Fig. 1, meeting claim 5.
Regarding claim 6, Ref~668 does not expressly disclose “wherein the at least one wiring line of the main line has a width smaller than the width of each of the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line”. However, these are normal design parameters/features in the field depending on custom specifications/application, meeting claim 6.
Regarding claim 7, Ref~668 discloses the balanced-to-unbalanced transformer circuit according to Claim 2, wherein the at least one wiring line of the main line comprises a plurality of wiring lines (12a/12b of Fig. 1) connected in parallel to one another, the plurality of wiring lines of the main line is less than or equal to, in count, the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line, and at least one of the plurality of wiring lines of the main line is coupled to two of the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line as seen, meeting claim 7.
Regarding claim 8, limitations from the claims can be rejected in the same manner as descried above in claims 1-7, since the same features/configurations with similar language are being presented except for “Ruthroff transmission lines transformer” being employed. However, these are normal design parameters/features in the field, and it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to employ said Ruthroff transmission lines transformer for broadband operation at least, depending on custom specifications, meeting claims 8-9.
Regarding claim 10, Ref~668 does not expressly suggest “wherein the main line of the balanced-to-unbalanced transformer circuit and the main line of the Ruthroff transmission line transformer are constituted by a series of conductor patterns in an identical wiring layer”. However, these are normal design parameters/features in the art, and it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to configure said transformer in the claimed manner depending on custom specifications, meeting claim 10.
Regarding claim 11, Ref~668 does not expressly suggest “wherein one of the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line of the balanced-to-unbalanced transformer circuit and the sub-line of the Ruthroff transmission line transformer are constituted by a series of conductor patterns in an identical wiring layer”. However, these are normal design parameters/features in the art, and it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to configure said transformer in the claimed manner depending on custom specifications, meeting claim 11.
Regarding claim 15, Ref~668 discloses a generic PA as shown in Fig. 3 and does not expressly disclose the claimed “a differential-power amplifier circuit that outputs differential signals from differential-signal output nodes; and a power supply circuit that supplies power to the differential-power amplifier circuit, wherein the differential-signal output nodes of the differential-power amplifier circuit are connected to differential-signal input nodes of the balanced-to-unbalanced transformer circuit of the balanced-to-unbalanced impedance transformer circuit”. However, these are normal design parameters/features in the art, and it would have been obvious to employ the claimed feature depending on custom specifications of an intended system, meeting claim 15.
Regarding claim 16, Ref~668 does not expressly disclose “wherein one of the plurality of wiring lines of the sub-line of the balanced-to-unbalanced transformer circuit and the sub-line of the Ruthroff transmission line transformer are constituted by a series of conductor patterns in an identical wiring layer”. However, these are normal design parameters/features in the art, and it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to configure said transformer in the claimed manner depending on custom specifications, meeting claim 16.
Regarding claim 20, Ref~668 discloses a generic PA as shown in Fig. 3 and does not expressly disclose the claimed “a differential-power amplifier circuit that outputs differential signals from differential-signal output nodes; and a power supply circuit that supplies power to the differential-power amplifier circuit, wherein the differential-signal output nodes of the differential-power amplifier circuit are connected to differential-signal input nodes of the balanced-to-unbalanced transformer circuit of the balanced-to-unbalanced impedance transformer circuit”. However, these are normal design parameters/features in the art, and it would have been obvious to employ the claimed feature depending on custom specifications of an intended system, meeting claim 20.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 12-14 and 17-19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HIEU P NGUYEN whose telephone number is 571-272-8577. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 8:30AM-6:00PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, YOUNGHUIE HAN (Jessica) can be reached on 571-272-2078. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 703-872-9306.
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).
/HIEU P NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2843
