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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in Republic of Korea on February 23, 2024. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the 10-2024-0026236 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Note: An attempt of retrieving the priority document electronically has failed on 7/23/2025.
Claim Objections
Applicant is advised that should claims 1-7 be found allowable, claims 8-14 will be objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate thereof. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The term “improve coupling” in claim 1 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “improve coupling” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. For this case, it is not clear to examiner that how to determine improvement in coupling of the two antennas. Therefore, the examiner will not give any patentable weight on the term “improve” until clarified by the applicant.
Appropriate clarification and/or correction is required.
Claim 8 is also rejected for same rationale.
Claims 2-7 and 9-14 are also rejected because claims are depended on rejected claims 1 and 8.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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(s) 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koo et al. (KR 2016-0023744) in view of Dishart (EP 1088364).
Re claims 1, 8: Koo teaches a vehicle antenna (fig. 3) comprising a glass antenna (302) provided on a rear glass of a vehicle to transmit and receive a wireless signal; a roof antenna (300) provided at an end portion of a roof panel of the vehicle to transmit and receive a wireless signal; and a rear glass attached to the roof antenna opposite to the roof antenna comprising a feeder line (304) serving as a pattern coupling the glass antenna and the roof antenna (figs. 3-5; page 14, 5th paragraph – page 17, 2nd paragraph of English translation).
However, Koo fairly suggest that a transparent conductive film.
Dishart teaches an on-glass antenna comprising a rear glass (12) comprising glass flies (14 and 16) wherein the glass plies are transparent rigid materials such as polycarbonates serving as a transparent conductive film (see fig. 1-3; page 1, lines 40-55).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to provide rigid glass with transparency.
Re claims 2, 4, 9, 11: Although, Koo as modified by Dishart fail to particularly teach that the ground points for the glass antenna and the roof antenna.
However, it would have been an obvious design variation well within the ordinary skill in the art failing to provide any unexpected results for choosing the vehicle body as a common ground or separate parts (e.g., the vehicle’s roof and vehicle’s frame, etc. respectively) of the vehicle body as grounds for antennas, and therefore an obvious expedient.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 5-7, 10, and 12-14 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.
None of prior art teaches the vehicle antenna comprising the transparent conductive film attached to the roof panel opposite to the roof antenna and including a pattern wherein the pattern is a defected ground structure (DGS) pattern, the pattern is a split ring resonator (SRR) pattern, the transparent conductive film is a conductive film using a multi-layered electrode film (MLF) which is a transparent electrode, and the transparent conductive film is a conductive film using a metal mesh film (MMF) which is a transparent electrode. as set forth in the claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Doi et al. (JP 2005142616) and Fujii et al. (US 5933119) teach glass antenna for vehicles.
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/SEUNG H LEE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2876