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 .
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because both Figs. 7 and 9 have a legend/table cut-off in the top right corner. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Objections
Claims 2, 6 and 8 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 2 and 6, line 2 of each claim: the examiner suggests rewriting “the third layer” to --a third layer-- to avoid an antecedent issue.
Claims 2 and 6, line 4 of each claim: the examiner suggests rewriting “the second layer” to --a second layer-- to avoid an antecedent issue.
Claim 8, line 9, the examiner suggests rewriting “finally” to --then-- to provide a more proper description.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kane et al. (USPAT 8,643,448 B2).
In regards to claim 1, Kane et al. teaches in Figs. 1 and 2A a multi-port directional coupler, wherein the multi-port directional coupler uses a PCB microstrip circuit (see Fig. 2A and Column 2, lines 61-67 and Column 3, lines 1-21, which discloses that the coupler is formed from a multi-layers PCB board having one layer having printed transmission lines over a ground layer, thereby forming a PCB microstrip circuit) and is provided with 6 ports, comprising a port 1 (P1), a port 2 (P2), a port 3A (P3), a port 4 (P6), a port 5 (P5), and a port 6 (P4), wherein the port 1 (P1) is an input of the multi-port directional coupler, and the port 2 (P2) is an output of the multi-port directional coupler;
The port 3A (P3) is a master coupling port with a given directivity value (See Column 2, Lines 34-60, which discloses that port P3 coupling to P1 is based on the dimension of line 1 and the coupling between lines 1 and 2, in which P6 is a termination/isolation port, therefore based on a difference between a isolation value and coupling value, a given “directivity” value will be determined);
The port 4 (P6) is a master isolation port with a given directivity value for detecting a reflecting power of the port 2 (See Column 2, Lines 34-60, which discloses that port P6 is a termination/isolation port, in which the dimension of line 1 and the coupling between lines 1 and 2, will determine a “reflecting” power of port P2);
The port 5 (P5) is a slave coupling port for detecting a transmitting power of the port 1 (See Column 2, Lines 34-60, P5 is a termination/isolation port, in which the dimension of line 1 and the coupling between lines 1 and 3, will determine the “detecting” transmitting power from port P1);
The port 6 (P4) is a slave isolation port for detecting the reflecting power of the port 2 (See Column 2, Lines 34-60, which discloses that port P is a termination/isolation port, in which the dimension of line 1 and the coupling between lines 1 and 3, will determine a “reflecting” power of port P2); and
Based on Fig. 2A, the ports 5 (P5) and 6 (P4) are in mirror symmetry with the ports 3A (P3) and 4 (P6).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4 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.
Claims 5-10 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
In regards to claims 5 and 9, the most relevant prior art reference is Kane et al. as disclosed above. However, Kane et al. does not teach: in regards to claim 5, a radio frequency power amplifier system based on a directional coupler output, comprising a control conditioning board, a pre-amplifier, a driving amplifier, a splitter, a radio frequency transistor amplifier, a combiner, and a dual directional coupler, and in the system, nonlinearity correction is carried out on a standard signal RF_IN1 generated by the spectrometer by using a feedback signal of the port 3B to form a signal RF_IN2; and in regards to claim 9, cascading the multi-port directional coupler and a slave direction coupler in two stages, wherein a peak input power of the slave directional coupler is less than 100 watts. Therefore, the applicants’ claimed inventions have been determined to be novel and non-obvious. By virtue of dependency from either claims 5 or 9, claims 6-8 and 10 have also been determined to be novel and non-obvious.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JORGE L SALAZAR JR whose telephone number is (571)-272-9326. The examiner can normally be reached between 9am - 6pm Monday-Friday.
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/JORGE L SALAZAR JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2843