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 (IDS) submitted on8/26/2024 was filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2 and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luo et al US Patent 12,074,579 in view of Cho et al US Patent Application 2014/0306782.
Luo et al disclose a bandpass filter comprising: a ceramic substrate (i.e. a stack) including a plurality layers stacked together; a first inductor L1, a second inductor L2, and a third inductor L4 provided in the ceramic substrate ; and a grounding polar plate (i.e. a shield conductor ) constituted by a conductor and integrated with the ceramic substrate, wherein the ceramic substrate includes a first surface and a second surface located at both ends of the ceramic substrate in a stacking direction of the plurality of layers, and a first side surface, a second side surface, a third side surface, and a fourth side surface connecting the first surface and the second surface, the first side surface and the second side surface face opposite directions, the third side surface and the fourth side surface face opposite directions, the second inductor is arranged between the first inductor and the third inductor, each of the first inductor, the second inductor, and the third inductor includes a double layer polar plate J1 J2 J3 (i.e. a conductor layer ) extending along a plane crossing the stacking direction and having a first end and a second end located at both longitudinal ends of the conductor layer, first hole pillar H11 H21 H31 (i.e. a first columnar conductor) extending in a direction parallel to the stacking direction and connected to a portion near the first end of the conductor layer, and a second hole pillar H12 H22 H32 (i.e. a second columnar conductor) extending in a direction parallel to the stacking direction and connected to a portion near the second end of the conductor layer.
The hole pillars H11 H21 H31 are located between the first layer and the tenth layer of the ceramic substrate, the upper end is connected to the double-layer polar plate J1 J2 J3 , and the lower end is connected to the grounding polar plate SD.
With regards to claim 2, the band pass filter further comprising: input (i.e. a first terminal) and an output (a second terminal ) provided on a surface the ceramic substrate ; and a first circuit provided between the first terminal and the second terminal in a circuit configuration, wherein the first circuit includes the first inductor, the second inductor, and the third inductor. (figure 1)
With regards to claim 8, the bandpass further comprising: a parallel resonance circuit including a fourth inductor L24 and a capacitor C15 provided in the ceramic substrate , and provided on a path connecting a node present between one end of the first inductor and one end of the second inductor in a circuit configuration and one end of the third inductor. (figure 1)
Thus, Luo et al is shown to teach all the limitation of the claim with exception the shield conductor including a first conductor part provided on the first side surface and second conductor part provided on the second side surface, the first end of the conductor layer is located at a position closer to the first conductor part than to the second conductor part, and the second end of the conductor layer is located at a position closer to the second conductor part than to the first conductor part.
Cho et al discloses a resonance device comprising a case. The case includes a first ground surface 360 and a second ground surface 370 that are placed opposite to each other . All surfaces, including the two ground surfaces 360, 370, of the case can be made of a conductive body. The case made of a conductive body can allow one or more resonators formed inside the case to operate without getting affected by an environment outside the case. Specifically, it is possible to prevent an outside environment from affecting the characteristics of the resonators inside the case, by shielding electromagnetic waves that can be generated by currents of other nearby devices or circuits.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to provide bandpass filter of Luo et al with a case as taught by Cho et al. Therefore, the bandpass filter would have a conductor on both the first and second side surfaces . The first end of the conductor layer would be located at position closer to the first side surface and the second end of the conductor layer would be located at position closer to the second side surface.
The motivation for this modification would have been to provide the advantageous benefit of preventing outside environment from affecting the characteristics of the filter inside the case, by shielding electromagnetic waves that can be generated by currents of other nearby devices or circuits.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-7 and 9 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.
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January 8, 2026
/K.E.G/Examiner, Art Unit 2843
/ANDREA LINDGREN BALTZELL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2843