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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Species C in the reply filed May 21, 2026 is acknowledged.
Specification
The Abstract stating “The present description concerns a device” uses a phrase which can be implied; the phrases should be changed to “A device”.
A new Abstract with an amendment to remove such an implied phrase is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text.
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 of this title, 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 1-2, 7-9, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 4,914,327 to Dekker.
With respect to claim 1, Dekker discloses in Fig. 3 (reproduced below with annotations) a device for switching a load, comprising:
two power thyristors (e.g., triac 7 replaced by two inverse parallel thyristors with polarities 7-1a and 7-2 as discussed below) coupled head-to-tail to each other; and
a control thyristor (e.g., triac 10 replaced by two inverse parallel thyristors with polarities 10-1 and 10-2 has a thyristor 10-1 with the polarity 10-1 and coupled to the control electrode/gate of 7-1) having an anode coupled to a gate of a first one (e.g., 7-1) of the two power thyristors (e.g., 7-1 and 7-2) and having a cathode (e.g., the cathode of 10-1) coupled to (e.g., via 14 and 5) an anode of the first one (e.g., 7-1) of the two power thyristors;
wherein (i) a gate of a second one (e.g., 7-2) of the two power thyristors is coupled to a first control input (e.g., the voltage at the control electrode/gate of 7-2) of the device for switching the load, and a gate of the control thyristor (e.g., 10-1) is coupled to a second control input (e.g., the voltage at the junction between 10 and 11 controls the current through 3) of the device for switching the load (e.g., 3), separate from the first control input (e.g., the voltage at the control electrode/gate of 7-2). While Dekker discloses that thyristors may be used in place of triacs 7 and 10 as per Col. 4 ll. 26-31, Dekker fails to explicitly disclose that triacs 7 and 10 in Fig. 3 are each replaced with inverse parallel thyristors. However, it was notoriously well known to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that a triac may be replaced with inverse parallel thyristors; an official notice of the foregoing fact is hereby taken. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention by using the notoriously well-known method of replacing a triac with inverse parallel thyristors because such a modification allows the performance of the same function of signal passage in response to a control signal.
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With respect to claim 2, the anode of the first one (e.g., 7-1) of the two power thyristors is coupled to an electric reference potential.
With respect to claim 7, a gate of the control thyristor (e.g., 10-1) and a gate of the second one (e.g., 7-2) of the two power thyristors are each coupled to an electric resistor (e.g., 9 for 7-2 and 11 for 10-1).
With respect to claim 8, the above discussion for claim 1 similarly applies. Further, AC electric voltage and two terminals thereof 1-2 with a load 3 between 1-2 are shown.
With respect to claim 9, the anode of the first one (e.g., 7-1) of the two power thyristors is coupled to an electric reference potential.
With respect to claims 14, the above discussion for dependent claims of claim 1 similarly applies.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6 and 10-13 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 Jung KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-7964. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 9AM to 5:30PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Regis BETSCH, can be reached at (571)270-7101. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JUNG KIM/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2836
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