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 .
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.
Claims 1-3, 11, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent No. 12,126,884 to Wang et al. (“Wang”), and further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0006687 to Lam (“Lam”).
Regarding claim 1, Wang teaches a camera module comprising:
a routing substrate having a ground plane coupled between a first side of the routing substrate and a second side of the routing substrate (Figure 4 shows an example substrate assembly with substrate 415 and ground layer 450 between a first side where the image sensor is mounted and a second side, see paragraph 30 describing Figure 4 with references to the ground layer 450);
an image sensor configured to receive incident image light, wherein the image sensor is electrically coupled to the first side of the routing substrate (reference number 410 image sensor receiving light from the z axis direction and coupled to the first or top side of the substrate 415 as seen in Figure 4);
electrical components electrically coupled to the second side of the routing substrate (electrical components 420 are coupled to the opposite or second side of the substrate 415 as further seen in Figure 4);
an electro-magnetic interference (EMI) shield layer, wherein the EMI shield layer is tied to the ground plane of the routing substrate (the EMI layer 450 is attached to ground, see the detailed description of Figure 4).
Wang is silent on molding. One of ordinary skill in the art realizes that a structure is necessary to support the image sensor and supporting electrical components. For example, Lam teaches a molding compound supporting the image sensor and supporting the electrical components (see paragraph [0048] regarding the image sensor chip packages can be a molded package with coated with a metal film to provide shielding from EMI).
It 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 to modify the teaching of Wang with that of Lam to use a molded packaging to support the image sensor and electrical components to utilize a commonly used packaging and simplified manufacturing to provide support and structure.
Regarding claim 2, Wang in view of Lam teach the camera module of claim 1, wherein the EMI shield layer includes metal (paragraph [0048] of Lam further teaches a metal film is coated on the molded package to acts as an EMI shield).
Regarding claim 3, Wang in view of Lam teach the camera module of claim 1, but are silent on wherein the EMI shield layer includes at least one of copper or stainless steel. One of ordinary skill in the art would realize that the metal layer used as an EMI shield may be made of any commonly used metal including copper to stainless steel. It 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 to modify the teaching of Wang in view of Lam to use copper or stainless steel as an economical and widely available material to fulfil the shielding function.
Claim 11 is rejected similarly to claim 1.
Regarding claim 20, Wang in view of Lam teach the method of claim 11, wherein the EMI shield layer contacts the molding compound (see Lam in paragraph [0048] regarding the EMI metal film layer on the molding package).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-10, 12-19 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AMY R HSU whose telephone number is (571)270-3012. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm.
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AMY R. HSU
Examiner
Art Unit 2664
/AMY R HSU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2638
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