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 .
Status of Claims
The following is a non-final, first office action in response to the communication filed 09/27/2024. Claims 1-8 are currently pending and have been examined.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. Benefit is given to the priority document JP2022-057342 and the effective filing date of 03/30/2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/27/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement has been 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1 and 4-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xie et al. (US-20230402763-A1; hereinafter Xie) in view of Jiang et al. (CN-111276803-A; hereinafter Jiang).
Regarding claim 1, Xie discloses [note, what Xie fails to disclose is strike-through]:
A reflecting device (see at least Abs; “A reflective array antenna includes a substrate and a plurality of reflective antenna elements.”) comprising:
a plurality of patch electrodes (see at least [0007]; “Each reflective antenna element may include a diode, a phase-shift delay line, and a radiation patch group.”) arranged in a first direction and in a second direction intersecting the first direction (see at least [0007]; “At least one mounting area is disposed on the first surface, and a plurality of reflective antenna elements distributed in an array are disposed in each mounting area. A row direction of the reflective antenna elements distributed in the array is a horizontal direction, and a column direction of the reflective antenna elements distributed in the array is a vertical direction.”); and
a common wiring connecting the plurality of patch electrodes in series in an array along the first direction (see at least [0048]; “In some embodiments, each radiation patch group 21 may include two radiation patches 210, and the two radiation patches 210 may be connected in series.”),
wherein each of the plurality of patch electrodes comprises a first length along the first direction and a second length along the second direction (see at least [0057]; “In addition, the radiation patch may be rectangular, diamond-shaped, circular, oval, or the like.”),
However, Xie does not explicitly teach wherein the first length is longer than the second length.
Xie discloses a reflective antenna array, and Jiang discloses an antenna comprising a dynamic reflector plate. Jiang teaches:
A reflecting device (see translation at least [0009]; “A high-gain, low-scattering, reconfigurable dual-band Fabry-Perot antenna based on a metasurface includes an upper cover plate, a lower cover plate, and a feed source. The upper and lower cover plates are arranged in parallel with a spacing of H. The lower cover plate has a hole, and the feed source is disposed on the lower surface of the lower cover plate around the hole. The lower cover plate is a dynamic reflector plate, and the operating frequency of the antenna is adjusted by changing the reflection phase of the dynamic reflector plate.”) comprising:
a plurality of patch electrodes (see translation at least [0012]; “Optionally, the lower cover plate includes several dynamic reflective ground plane units, a first voltage bias line, and a second voltage bias line. Each dynamic reflective ground plane unit includes two symmetrically arranged rectangular metal patches, a third dielectric substrate, a metal ground, and a varactor diode loaded between the two rectangular metal patches.”) arranged in a first direction and in a second direction intersecting the first direction (see at least Fig. 6, arrangement of metal patches 211 in the dynamic reflective ground plane unit 21); and
a common wiring connecting the plurality of patch electrodes in series in an array along the first direction (see translation at least [0012]; “The rectangular metal patches on the left side of the same column of dynamic reflective ground plane units are connected in series via a DC bias line and connected to the first voltage bias line, and connected to the negative electrode. The rectangular metal patches on the right side are connected in series via a DC bias line and connected to the second voltage bias line, and connected to the positive electrode.”),
wherein each of the plurality of patch electrodes comprises a first length along the first direction and a second length along the second direction (see at least Fig. 6, lengths ‘a’ and ‘b’), and
wherein the first length is longer than the second length (see translation at least [0049]; “After a series of optimizations, the other geometric parameters were set to a = 5.5 mm, b = 2.9 mm, d = 1.5 mm, and t = 0.4 mm.”).
Both Xie and Jiang employ reflecting patch arrays with rectangular patches connected in series. Xie does not give dimensions for the patches, while Jiang teaches the patches to be longer in the series-connected direction. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xie to have the rectangular patches be longer in the series-connected direction, as taught by Jiang. One of ordinary skill would be motivated to adapt the geometry of Jiang in order to build on the results that Jiang found to be optimal (see Jiang at least [0049]; “After a series of optimizations, the other geometric parameters were set to a = 5.5 mm, b = 2.9 mm, d = 1.5 mm, and t = 0.4 mm.”).
Regarding claim 4, Xie in view of Jiang discloses the reflecting device according to claim 1. Xie further teaches:
wherein the common wiring is connected at a center portion in the second direction at each of the plurality of patch electrodes (see at least Fig. 3, line feeding and line connecting two units 210 are centered on the patches 210).
Regarding claim 5, Xie in view of Jiang discloses the device according to claim 1. Xie further teaches:
wherein the common wiring bends (see at least Fig. 3, where patches 210 are wired in series, and the phase shift delay line 23 is bent relative to the radiation patch group 21).
Regarding claim 6, Xie in view of Jiang discloses the device according to claim 1. Xie further teaches:
wherein each of the plurality of patch electrodes includes a notch in a center portion in the second direction, and the common wiring is connected at the notch (see notches at the connection point of the wiring in Fig. 3).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xie in view of Jiang, further in view of Santas et al. (Santas, J.G. & Alomainy, Akram & Hao, Yang. (2007). Textile Antennas for On-Body Communications: Techniques and Properties. 2007. 1 - 4. 10.1049/ic.2007.1064.; hereinafter Santas).
Regarding claim 2, Xie in view of Jiang discloses the reflecting device according to claim 1. However, Xie does not explicitly teach:
wherein a width of the common wiring is less than 3% of the second length.
Xie discloses a reflective antenna array comprising radiation patches, and Santas is directed to a microstrip patch antenna for textiles. Santas teaches:
wherein a width of the wiring is less than 3% of the second length (see at least Fig. 2, microstrip width of 0.65 mm compared to patch length of 34 mm).
Xie discloses an array of rectangular radiation patches separated by a dielectric layer from a grounded floor (see [0053] and first floor 12 in Fig. 6). Santas teaches a single rectangular radiation patch separated by a dielectric later from a grounded floor (see Fig. 1 and introduction paragraph 3). Xie uses an inset feeding geometry, and Santas uses an edge feeding geometry, both of which are known and used in the art (see for example Errifi et al.1, where both feeding methods are taught and compared in section 3). Xie does not explicitly teach dimensions for the radiation patches. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xie to have dimensions and feeding method informed by the design of Santas. One of ordinary skill would be motivated to adapt the geometry of Xie in light of the teaching of Santas in order to select dimensions in light of existing designs, combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xie in view of Jiang and Santas, further in view of Wu et al. (US-20200358195-A1; hereinafter Wu).
Regarding claim 3, Xie in view of Jiang discloses the reflecting device according to claim 1. However, Xie does not explicitly teach:
wherein the first length is greater than 1 time of the second length, and the first length is equal to or less than 1.2 times of the second length, and a width of the common wiring is 2% or less of the second length.
Xie discloses a reflective antenna array comprising radiation patches, and Santas is directed to a microstrip patch antenna for textiles. Santas teaches:
wherein a width of the wiring is 2% or less of the second length (see at least Fig. 2, microstrip width of 0.65 mm compared to patch length of 34 mm).
Xie discloses an array of rectangular radiation patches separated by a dielectric layer from a grounded floor (see [0053] and first floor 12 in Fig. 6). Santas teaches a single rectangular radiation patch separated by a dielectric later from a grounded floor (see Fig. 1 and introduction paragraph 3). Xie uses an inset feeding geometry, and Santas uses an edge feeding geometry, both of which are known in the art (see for example Errifi et al.2, where both feeding methods are taught in section 3). Xie does not explicitly teach dimensions for the radiation patches. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xie to have dimensions and feeding method informed by the design of Santas. One of ordinary skill would be motivated to adapt the geometry of Xie in light of the teaching of Santas in order to select dimensions in light of existing designs, combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results.
However, neither Xie nor Santas explicitly teach wherein the first length is greater than 1 time of the second length, and the first length is equal to or less than 1.2 times of the second length.
Xie discloses a reflective antenna array comprising radiation patches, and Wu is directed to a series-fed antenna comprising multiple radiation patches. Wu teaches:
wherein the first length is greater than 1 time of the second length, and the first length is equal to or less than 1.2 times of the second length (see at least [0018]; “In addition, in this embodiment, the first patch 114 and each of the second patches 115 and 116 are rectangular. One side length (for example, a side length along the direction A1) of any of the first patch 114 and the second patches 115 and 116 is between 0.9 millimeters and 1.05 millimeters, and another side length (for example, a side length along a direction A2) is between 0.7 millimeters and 1.6 millimeters. Definitely, a relationship between dimensions of the first patch 114 and the second patches 115 and 116 is not limited thereto.” Thus the ranges of Wu include the range of claim 3.).
Both Xie and Wu teach series-coupled radiation patches. Xie does not specifically teach dimensions of the patches, while Wu gives a range of acceptable lengths and widths. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to design the patches of Xie within the dimension ranges given by Wu, or a scaling thereof. One of ordinary skill would be motivated to adapt the geometry of Xie in light of the teaching of Wu in order to select dimensions in light of existing designs, combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results.
Claims 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xie in view of Jiang, further in view of Chang et al. (US-20220384961-A1; hereinafter Chang).
Regarding claim 7, Xie in view of Jiang discloses the reflecting device according to claim 1. Xie further teaches:
further comprising: a reflecting plate (see at least Fig. 6, first floor 12, and [0053]; “the first floor 12 is used as the ground end”) arranged behind the plurality of patch electrodes (first floor 12 is part of the substrate 10, shown in Fig. 2 to be below the reflective antenna elements 20); and a (see at least Fig. 6, first dielectric layer substrate 11).
However, Xie does not teach that the dielectric layer between the patch electrodes and the reflecting plate is made of a liquid crystal.
Xie discloses a reflective antenna array, and Chang discloses an electromagnetic wave reflectarray. Chang teaches:
further comprising: a plates (see at least Fig. 2B, tuning electrodes 120) arranged behind the plurality of patch electrodes (see at least Fig. 2A, antenna electrodes 110); and a liquid crystal layer arranged between the plurality of patch electrodes and the reflecting plate (see at least Figs. 2A and 2B, liquid crystal layer LCL).
Both Xie and Chang teach reflecting arrays comprising patch electrodes separated from a conductive plate by a dielectric layer. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the dielectric layer used in Xie to include a liquid crystal layer, as taught by Chang. One of ordinary skill would be motivated to include a liquid crystal layer in order to be able to tune the dielectric value and control the array’s resonance frequency, as recognized by Chang (see Chang at least [0053]; “It should be noted that the antenna electrode 110 and the tuning electrode 120 that overlap along a direction D3, as well as the portion of the liquid crystal layer LCL located between these two electrodes may be regarded as one antenna structure of this embodiment. The resonance frequency of electromagnetic waves on the antenna electrode 110 may be adjusted by changing effective dielectric constants of that portion of the liquid crystal layer LCL.”).
Regarding claim 8, Xie in view of Jiang discloses the reflecting device according to claim 1. However, Xie does not teach:
further comprising:
a plurality of control electrodes arranged in correspondence with each of the plurality of patch electrodes; and
a liquid crystal layer between the plurality of patch electrodes and the plurality of control electrodes,
wherein each of the plurality of control electrodes is connected to a switching element.
Xie discloses a reflective antenna array, and Chang discloses an electromagnetic wave reflectarray. Chang teaches:
further comprising:
a plurality of control electrodes (see at least Fig. 2B, tuning electrodes 120) arranged in correspondence with each of the plurality of patch electrodes (see at least [0047]; “The tuning electrodes 120 are respectively disposed in correspondence to these antenna electrodes 110.”); and
a liquid crystal layer between the plurality of patch electrodes and the plurality of control electrodes (see at least Figs. 2A and 2B, liquid crystal layer LCL),
wherein each of the plurality of control electrodes is connected to a switching element (see at least [0055]; “For example, in this embodiment, all antenna electrodes 110 have the same first voltage V1, and all tuning electrodes 120 have the same second voltage V2. The first voltage V1 is different from the second voltage V2. In detail, the first wires WR1 electrically connected to the electrode strings 1105 may be selectively electrically connected to a first voltage source 210 to have the first voltage V1, while the second wires WR2 electrically connected to the electrode strings 120S may be selectively electrically connected to a second voltage source 220 to have the second voltage V2.”).
Both Xie and Chang teach reflecting arrays comprising patch electrodes separated from a conductive plate by a dielectric layer. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the dielectric layer used in Xie to include a liquid crystal layer, as taught by Chang. One of ordinary skill would be motivated to include a liquid crystal layer in order to be able to tune the dielectric value and control the array’s resonance frequency, as recognized by Chang (see Chang at least [0053]; “It should be noted that the antenna electrode 110 and the tuning electrode 120 that overlap along a direction D3, as well as the portion of the liquid crystal layer LCL located between these two electrodes may be regarded as one antenna structure of this embodiment. The resonance frequency of electromagnetic waves on the antenna electrode 110 may be adjusted by changing effective dielectric constants of that portion of the liquid crystal layer LCL.”). It would furthermore be obvious modify Xie to use the tuning electrodes taught by Chang in order to individually control the reflection phase of the electromagnetic waves at each location (see Chang at least [0076]; “The antenna electrodes 110 electrically connected to the same first wire WR1-B may have different voltages through being disposed with the first resistors R1, while the tuning electrodes 120 electrically connected to the same second wire WR2-B may have different voltages through being disposed with the second resistors R2. Accordingly, the operation flexibility of these electrodes may be increased, and the reflection phase of electromagnetic waves of each antenna structure may be individually controlled, thereby changing the emitting direction of the electromagnetic waves reflected by the antenna structures.”).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Ashley B. Raynal whose telephone number is (703)756-4546. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8 AM - 4 PM.
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/ASHLEY BROWN RAYNAL/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
/VLADIMIR MAGLOIRE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3648
1 Errifi, Hayat & Abdennaceur, Baghdad & Badri, Abdelmajid. (2014). EFFECT OF CHANGE IN FEEDPOINT ON THE ANTENNA PERFORMANCE IN EDGE, PROBE AND INSET-FEED MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA FOR 10 GHZ. International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Development. 1. 80.
2 Errifi, Hayat & Abdennaceur, Baghdad & Badri, Abdelmajid. (2014). EFFECT OF CHANGE IN FEEDPOINT ON THE ANTENNA PERFORMANCE IN EDGE, PROBE AND INSET-FEED MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA FOR 10 GHZ. International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Development. 1. 80.
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