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 Objections
Claim 17 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 17, Line 4, “lacking a gap hammer structure” should be rewritten as – lacking the gap hammer structure--.
Claim 17, Line 2, “waver” should be rewritten as –wave-- for an appropriate spelling.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 2-8, 10-16, and 18-20 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 15 depends upon rejected claim 13 and inherits the deficiency thereby.
Claims 2-3, Line 2; and Claims 10-11, Line 2, “gap hammer structures” is unclear to one of ordinary skill in the art how these “gap hammer structures” relate to the “gap hammer structures” as defined in Claims 1 and 9, from which these claims depend, thereby leaving the boundaries of the claim unclear.
Claims 4-8 and Claims 12-14, all recitations of “the gap hammer structure” are unclear to one of ordinary skill in the art as to which one of the “one or more gap hammer structures”, as recited in claims 1 and 9, from which these claims depend, would be respectively intended by each recitation of the singular “the gap hammer structure”, leaving the boundaries of the claim unclear.
Claim 8, Line 1; and Claim 16, Line 1, “a plurality of series arm surface acoustic wave resonators” is unclear to one of ordinary skill in the art whether this is referring to “a plurality series arm surface acoustic wave resonators” as defined earlier in Claims 1 and 9, respectively, from which these claims depend, or a differing, new “series arm surface acoustic wave resonator”, thereby leaving the boundaries of the claim unclear.
Claims 8, Line 4; and Claim 16, Line 4, “include the gap hammer structure” is unclear to one of ordinary skill in the art whether a plurality of series arm surface acoustic wave resonators having a lower resonance frequency or having a higher resonance frequency, as defined in claims 8 and 16 are including the gap hammer structure, thereby leaving the boundaries of the claim unclear.
Claim 18, Line 2; Claim 19, Line 3; and Claim 20, Line 3, “a gap hammer structure” is unclear to one of ordinary skill in the art whether this is referring to “a gap hammer structure” as defined in Claim 17, from which these claims depend, or differing, new “gap hammer structure”, thereby leaving the boundaries of the claim unclear.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-3, 9-11, and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Schulz (US 20220247379).
As per Claims 1-3, 9-11, and 17-18:
Schulz discloses in Figure 7: An electronics module (as per claim 9, “RF transceiver”, 900 employing the filter circuit 700, corresponds to an electronics module) comprising a RF ladder filter (“electroacoustic filter circuit”, 700) and a method of forming the ladder filter (as per claim 17, the formation is inherent due to the necessity to form the structure) with a plurality of series arm SAW resonators (“SAW resonator” 704, 706, and 708), constituting the first subset of the plurality of resonators (as per claim 17), connected between an input (702) and output (714) of the filter, one or more of the series SAW resonators including gap hammer structures (as is evident by electrode fingers with hammer heads in related Figure 2A) and the others lacking the gap hammer structure (as is evident by related Figure 3, where electrode fingers may be formed without hammer heads, [0048]) to improve insertion loss within the filter (an inherent benefit of such a modification, as known to one of ordinary skill in the art), and a plurality of shunt SAW resonators (“SAW resonator”, 710 and 712), constituting the second subset of the plurality of resonators (as per claim 17), connected between nodes of an adjacent series SAW resonator and ground (e.g. between series resonators (704, 706; 706, 708) as is evident by Figure 7) wherein one or more or each of the plurality of shunt SAW include gap hammer structures (as per claims 2-3, 10-11, and 18, as evident by related Figure 2A, each electrode includes hammer heads, therefore each of the plurality evidently includes gap hammer structures).
Conclusion
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/ABIGAIL AMIR YALDO/Examiner, Art Unit 2843
/ANDREA LINDGREN BALTZELL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2843
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