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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. KR 10-2024-0010762, filed on Jan. 24, 2024.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted complies with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
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 – 5, 9, 13, 15 – 17, and 19 – 21 are rejected under § 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Xu (US 20190067806 A1).
As to claim 1, Xu discloses a color-exhibiting structure (Fig. 7A item 110, 120 & 130 NOTE that a radome is typically black or grey in color and that color as an aesthetic feature does not receive patentable weight.),
wherein the color-exhibiting structure is a metamaterial structure comprising a metal pattern layer in which metal patterns having a unit metamaterial pattern formed to satisfying a relationship of T >(1-E) when a transmittance (T) of microwaves is a metal filling fraction (E) in a specific frequency band of the microwaves are periodically arranged (Para. 48 “A material is “RF transparent” if an EM signal (within a certain frequency range) can pass through the material with no (i) amplitude reduction, (ii) phase distortion, or (iii) a combination thereof. When the amplitude reduction or the phase distortion changes by 10% or less, then the material has “near-perfect RF transparency”.” see also Para. 10 “where the volume fraction of the metallic ring was only 1:
10
4
to the entire structure” and Figs. 1C and 5 show a periodic arrangement. Note the inherency rationale made in Application 17/825,335 with respect to claim 2 on page 3.); and
a color implementation pattern layer having the same unit metamaterial pattern as the metal pattern and laminated with one or more dielectric layers or metal layers on top of the metal pattern layer (Para. 125 “As depicted at FIG. 8C, the refracted signal can stay in the SiO.sub.2 layer and there may be only reflected light coming out of this metasurface device. This design can be augmented by adding another layer of metasurface pattern (such as a mirror-pattern design) on the top, so that the reflected signal can also stay inside the SiO.sub.2 layer (or the Au layer) and overall will propagate to the right-hand side direction.”).
As to claim 2, Xu discloses the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 1, wherein the color implementation pattern layer is formed as a single thin film layer laminated with a non-light-absorbing single dielectric thin film whose thickness is set to implement a structure color by interference between incident visible light and visible light reflected from the metal pattern layer (Paras. 120 – 125 discuss two thin nanorod metasurface arrays to control reflecting light.).
As to claim 3, Xu discloses the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 1, wherein the color implementation pattern layer is formed as a single thin film layer laminated with a light-absorbing single dielectric thin film whose thickness is set to implement a structure color by interference between incident visible light and visible light reflected from the metal pattern layer (Id.).
As to claim 4, Xu discloses the color-exhibiting structure according to claim1,wherein the color implementation pattern layer is formed as a multilayer thin-film layer formed by alternately laminating, one or more times, a non-light-absorbing single dielectric thin film whose thickness is set to implement a structure color by interference between incident visible light and visible light reflected from the metal pattern layer; and a light-absorbing single dielectric thin film whose thickness is set to implement a structure color by interference between incident visible light and visible light reflected from the metal pattern layer (Para. 125 “The interference of light can be tailored at the subwavelength scale and the field-of-view can be up to ±40°. As depicted at FIG. 8C, the refracted signal can stay in the SiO.sub.2 layer and there may be only reflected light coming out of this metasurface device. This design can be augmented by adding another layer of metasurface pattern (such as a mirror-pattern design) on the top, so that the reflected signal can also stay inside the SiO.sub.2 layer (or the Au layer) and overall will propagate to the right-hand side direction.” Note that color in and of itself is aesthetic.).
As to claim 5, Xu discloses the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 1, wherein the color implementation pattern layer is formed as a multilayer thin-film layer comprising a non-light-absorbing dielectric thin-film layer whose thickness is set to implement a structure color by interference between incident visible light and visible light reflected from the metal pattern layer; and a metal layer whose thickness is set to implement a structure color by interference between incident visible light and visible light reflected from the metal pattern layer, wherein the thin-film layer and the metal layer are alternately laminated one or more times (In addition to Para. 125 cited in claim 4, Fig. 1A shows a thickness as described in Para. 66.).
As to claim 9, Xu discloses the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 1, wherein the unit metamaterial pattern has structural symmetry with respect to two mutually orthogonal directions with respect to a center point of a unit area of the metal pattern so that the polarization dependence on microwaves does not occur (Para. 51).
As to claim 13, Xu discloses the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 1, wherein the specific frequency band of the microwaves is varied by selectively changing structural parameters of the unit metamaterial structure, and the structural parameters comprise one or more of size, length, thickness, width, and separation distance of each component having a structural symmetry of a unit metamaterial pattern constituting the unit metamaterial structure (Para. 10).
As to claim 15, Xu discloses the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 1, wherein the metal pattern layer is formed such that a relationship between a metal filling fraction (E) per unit area of the metal pattern and a transmittance (T) of the microwaves satisfies a relationship of T > (1-E) for both orthogonal polarizations in the specific frequency band of the microwaves (Para. 48).
As to claim 16, Xu discloses the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 1, wherein a metal forming the metal pattern layer comprises one or more of copper, silver, gold, aluminum, a liquid metal, and an alloy comprising any one of copper, silver, gold, and aluminum (Para. 15).
As to claim 17, Xu discloses the color-exhibiting structure according to claim l, wherein the color-exhibiting structure has a pattern structure in which a plurality of unit metamaterial structures are sequentially connected, wherein the unit metamaterial structures comprise laminated unit metal pattern layers having the unit metamaterial pattern and a unit color implementation pattern layer laminated on top of the unit metal pattern layers (Fig. 2D shows stacked resonators. Color in and of itself is aesthetic.).
As to claim 19, Xu discloses the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 1,wherein the color-exhibiting structure has a pattern structure in which a plurality of unit metamaterial structures, wherein the unit metamaterial structures comprise laminated unit metal pattern layers are arranged to be electrically open to each other (Para. 67 wherein the dielectric implies that current isn’t being shorted between structures.).
As to claim 20, Xu discloses the radar apparatus, comprising: the color-exhibiting structure of a metamaterial structure according to claim 1;a protective cover made of transparent material placed on a front of the color-exhibiting structure; and a radar sensor module positioned at a rear of the color-exhibiting structure to detect obstacles in front of the protective cover through microwaves passing through the protective cover and the color-exhibiting structure (Fig. 7A).
As to claim 21, Xu discloses the radar apparatus according to claim 20, further comprising an insulating packaging member made of transparent material placed between the color-exhibiting structure and the protective cover; and a substrate member made of transparent material placed between the color-exhibiting structure and the radar sensor module (Para. 48 and Fig. 7A).
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 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Xu in view of Official Notice.
As to claim 6, Xu does not teach the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 2, wherein the color implementation pattern layer is designed to have a thickness of λ/4 when a wavelength of the structure color to be implemented is λ.
The Examiner takes official notice that λ/4 is used across many different disciplines as a dielectric thickness to prevent unwanted signals thus improving accuracy.
As to claim 8, Xu does not teach the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 3, wherein the color implementation pattern layer is designed to have a thickness of λ//4 or less when a wavelength of the structure color to be implemented is λ.
As to claim 14, Xu does not teach the color-exhibiting structure according to claim 1, wherein the specific frequency band of the microwaves is set to 70 to 110 GHz comprising a W band or 4.4 to 52.6 GHz, which is a 5G/6Gcommunication frequency band.
The Examiner takes official notice of the increase market demand for 5G thus the Examiner takes official notice that it would have been obvious to design for 5G wavelengths wherein the motivation is market demand.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 10 – 12 and 18 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.
At least the claimed feature of the layers being alternately laminated is not taught in claim 7. The structure being arranged radially is not taught in claim 10. Claims 11 – 12 depend from claim 10. The heater of claim 18 is not disclosed by Xu and would not be obvious to modify.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL W JUSTICE whose telephone number is (571)270-7029. The examiner can normally be reached 7:30 - 5:30 M-F.
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/MICHAEL W JUSTICE/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
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