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 received.
Drawings
The drawings (02/19/2025 & 05/19/2025) are objected to because certain drawings include numbers and/or characters with small and/or blurry font making it difficult to read those numbers and/or characters.
Figure 1, characters for the ports, “P…” are blurry, the characters on the side view drawing are too small and blurry. Replacement Fig. 3C (05/19/2025) the text and numbers are blurry. Figure 18B the descriptive text is too small and blurry.
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
Claim 4, 6, 9 are objected to because of the following informality:
Claim 4, line 2, the “, and wherein the” should be “, and wherein the”.
Claim 4, lines 2-3 the recited “the series feedline is a feedline technique that introduces …” should be “the series feedline is a feedline that introduces”. (It is understood that a feedline is a component, not a technique).
Claim 6, line 2 the recited “at least one other” should be “at least another”.
Claim 9, the line space between line 1 and the rest of the claim should re removed.
Claim 9, line 2, the recited “performance between in terms of…” should be “performance in terms of…”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1, lines 1 and 18 recite “8N-port MIMO”, it is unclear what “N” intends to c
claim. The meaning of “N” should be defined in the claim.
Claim 1, lines 11-13 recite “wherein a feedline connects each of the plurality of stacked patch antenna elements in series such that the feedline introduces an 180° phase shift between the plurality of microstrip/stacked patch antenna elements”.
It is unclear what the “/” attempts to claim. If “/” is to be interpreted as an “or”, then the claim would claim “such that the feedline introduces an 180° phase shift between the plurality of microstrip or stacked patch antenna elements”, which requires “the plurality of microstrip antenna elements” or “the plurality of stacked patch antenna elements”.
If the above limitation is interpreted as claiming “such that the feedline introduces an 180° phase shift between the plurality of microstripis not clear how the feedline which is claimed to connect each of the plurality of stacked patch antenna elements in series, introduces an 180° phase shift between the plurality of microstrip antenna elements.
Claim 2 defines “N”. Claim 2 also claims “microstrip/stacked” similar to claim 1, it is unclear what the “/” means.
Claims 3-6 are also rejected since they depend on rejected claim 1.
Claim 7, claims “microstrip/stacked” similar to claim 1, 1, it is unclear what the “/” means.
Claim 8, claims “n x n”, it is unclear what the “n” intends to claim. The meaning of “n” should be defined in the claim.
Claim 9, line 3 recites “any two radiated beams”. It is unclear which “any two radiated beams” this limitation refers to. Claim 9 depends on claim 1, and neither of these claims, claim “radiated beams”.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 1 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art of the record does not teach or suggest alone or in combination:
all of the limitations recited by claim 1 (and under the assumption the meaning of “N” and “/” will be defined in the claim).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Y. Chen, J. Zhao and S. Yang, "A Novel Stacked Antenna Configuration and its Applications in Dual-Band Shared-Aperture Base Station Antenna Array Designs," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 67, no. 12, pp. 7234-7241, Dec. 2019.
Refer to Fig. 1(a), 1(b) and Fig. 2 lower-band and upper-band MIMO antenna configurations.
G. Zhu, H. Xia, B. Chen, H. Liu and L. Li, "Dual-band Dual-polarized Scalable Phased Array Antenna with High Isolation and Polarization Purity for 5G Millimeter Wave Applications," 2021 IEEE MTT-S International Wireless Symposium (IWS), Nanjing, China, 2021, pp. 1-3.
Refer to at least Fig. 1-3 antenna design having a stack structure for dual-band dual-polarization operation.
Ng et al. (U.S. 2026/0121297) refer to the antenna systems of Fig. 1-2, 10. The antenna systems of Fig.1-2 include a low band patch radiator or antenna 16 and a high band dipole patch radiator or antenna 22 (a co-located stacked array). The high band antenna 22 is placed on top of the low band antenna 16 as shown. “The high band dipole patch radiator or antenna 22 and the low band patch radiator antenna 16 form a stacked patch antenna.”
Figure 10 illustrates “…the two antenna assemblies 10 being used in a 4×4 MIMO configuration with 4 ports. However, the antenna assembly may be used in other configurations, including, but not limited to, an 8 ×8 configuration.”
Yin et al. CN 118399080 A. The entire document is relevant, and refer to the description of the background technology. “The stacked high-frequency antenna unit is placed above the low-frequency antenna…”
Sakr et al. (U.S. 12,412,996) refer to the antennas of Fig. 1C, 1D, 1E.
Moallem et al. (U.S. 2023/0076013) entire document is relevant. Refer to the antenna arrays of Fig. 1-2, each comprising high band antenna array elements 12 and low band antenna array elements 18. Fig. 7 discloses an example of the low band antenna array element 18.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SOPHIA VLAHOS whose telephone number is (571)272-5507. The examiner can normally be reached M 8:00-4:00, TWRF 8:00-2:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, SAM K AHN can be reached at 571-272-3044. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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SOPHIA VLAHOS
Examiner
Art Unit 2633
/SOPHIA VLAHOS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2633 05/29/2026
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