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 1-10 are pending.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Objections
Claims 4-7 are objected to because of the following informalities:
The following changes should be made to improve claim language clarity and avoid potential 112 issues within the claims:
On line 8 of claims 4-5 and on the penultimate line of claims 6-7, change each occurrence of “pairs of first reflection grating sub-arrays” to --pairs of the first reflection grating sub-array--.
On the penultimate line of claims 4-5, change each occurrence of “pairs of second reflection grating sub-arrays” to --pairs of the second reflection grating sub-array--.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 5 and 7 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.
Claim 5 lines 10-11 recites “a quantity of pairs of second reflection grating sub-arrays is greater than the first preset threshold” claim 7 lines 6-7 recites “a quantity of pairs of first reflection grating sub-arrays is greater than the first preset threshold”. However, it is unclear to the Examiner as to how the “quantity of pairs of first/second reflection grating sub-arrays are greater than the first preset threshold” when previously in claim 1 the Applicant recites that the “quantity of pairs of first reflection gratings is less than or equal to the first preset threshold”. The limitations are contradictory to one another and thus are deemed vague and indefinite. A reasonable interpretation could not be made by the examiner and thus claims 5 and 7 have not been further examined based on their merits.
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, 4, and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Numata et al. US 2020/0244246.
As per claims 1, 3, 4, and 6, Numata et al. discloses in Figs. 1a-1b and 8a a structure of an acoustic wave filter (e.g. acoustic filter in Fig. 8a), comprising:
as per claim 1, parallel resonators (e.g. parallel resonators P1-P4) and series resonators (e.g. series resonators S1-S4), wherein the parallel resonators and the series resonators are cascaded (The resonators are cascaded together to form a ladder filter.); each of the parallel resonators comprises a first supporting substrate (e.g. support substrate 10b), a first piezoelectric thin film (e.g. piezoelectric substrate 10a), and a first electrode array (e.g. IDT 24), wherein the first piezoelectric thin film is disposed on the first supporting substrate (The substrate 10a is disposed on the substrate 10b.), and the first electrode array is disposed on the first piezoelectric thin film (The IDT 24 is disposed on the substrate 10a.); the first electrode array comprises a first interdigital electrode array (e.g. comb shaped electrodes 18) and a first reflection grating array (e.g. left reflector 20 and right reflector 20 which include grating electrodes 16); and a quantity of pairs of first reflection gratings of at least one of the parallel resonators is less than or equal to a first preset threshold, and the first preset threshold is less than 5 (Fig. 1a; As shown, there are total eight (i.e. four pairs) grating electrodes 16 within the left and right reflectors 20, thus two is necessarily less than five.);
as per claim 3, wherein a ratio of a thickness of the first piezoelectric thin film to a spacing between centers of adjacent first interdigital electrodes in the first interdigital electrode array is less than a third preset threshold (Paragraphs 24 and 28; A thickness of the substrate 10a is 20λ and a pitch Db1 corresponds to centers of adjacent IDTs. As stated, 2Db1 = λ. Thus Db1 = λ/2 and a ratio of the thickness to the spacing is 20 λ / λ/2 = 40, which is necessarily less than “a third preset threshold” of 50 (The Examiner construes “a third preset threshold” to be an arbitrary number, such as for example 50 as the limitation is broad.).);
as per claim 4, wherein for the at least one of the parallel resonators, the first reflection grating array comprises a first reflection grating sub-array (e.g. left reflector 20) and a second reflection grating sub-array (e.g. right reflector 20); the first reflection grating sub-array is disposed on one end portion of the first interdigital electrode array (e.g. left end); the second reflection grating sub-array is disposed on the other end portion of the first interdigital electrode array (e.g. right end); a quantity of pairs of first reflection grating sub-arrays is less than or equal to the first preset threshold (Fig. 1a; As shown, there are four (i.e. two pairs) grating electrodes 16 within the left reflector 20, thus two is necessarily less than five.); and a quantity of pairs of second reflection grating sub-arrays is less than or equal to the first preset threshold (Fig. 1a; As shown, there are four (i.e. two pairs) grating electrodes 16 within the right reflector 20, thus two is necessarily less than five.); and
as per claim 6, wherein for the at least one of the parallel resonators, the first reflection grating array comprises a first reflection grating sub-array (e.g. left reflector 20); the first reflection grating sub-array is disposed on an end portion of the first interdigital electrode array (e.g. left end); and a quantity of pairs of the first reflection grating sub-array is less than or equal to the first preset threshold (Fig. 1a; As shown, there are four (i.e. two pairs) grating electrodes 16 within the left reflector 20, thus two is necessarily less than five.).
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 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Numata et al. US 2020/0244246 in view of Daimon US 2020/0228099.
As per claim 2, Numata et al. discloses the structure according to claim 1, wherein each of the series resonators comprises a second supporting substrate (e.g. support substrate 10b), a second piezoelectric thin film (e.g. piezoelectric substrate 10a), and a second electrode array (e.g. IDT 24); the second piezoelectric thin film is disposed on the second supporting substrate, and the second electrode array comprises a second interdigital array (e.g. IDT 24) and a second reflection grating array (e.g. right reflector 20).
However, Numata et al. does not disclose a quantity of pairs of second reflection gratings of at least one of the series resonators is greater than a second first preset threshold, and the second preset threshold is greater than the first preset threshold.
Daimon exemplarily discloses in Fig. 10 an acoustic filter 11 where a total number of reflection electrode fingers of the series resonator 111s and a total number of reflection electrode fingers of the parallel resonator 111a are the same or different from one another, where at least one of the total numbers is equal to 31 (Fig. 8a and Paragraph 96 of Daimon). Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have designed each of the series resonators and each of the parallel resonators of Numata et al. to have had either the same or different number of reflection gratings, such as for example a different number where one of the series resonators has 31 reflection gratings, as being an obvious design consideration of yielding expected results based on the exemplary teachings of Daimon. As an obvious consequence of the modification, the combination would have necessarily included a quantity of pairs of second reflection gratings of at least one of the series resonators is greater than a second first preset threshold (e.g. ten; The Examiner construes “a second preset threshold” to be an arbitrary number, such as for example 10 as the limitation is broad.), and the second preset threshold is greater than the first preset threshold (In the resultant circuit, there exists 31 fingers (i.e. at least 15 pairs) which is greater than the “first preset threshold” of five pairs.).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-10 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
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