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.
1. Claims 1-3, 10-13 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ng (2019/0036495) in view of Arell (US 6580321).
2. As per claim 1, Ng teaches an electronic device, comprising: an amplifier circuit configured to amplify a signal of a specific frequency band (Ng, Fig. 1 item 140 and related text); an overvoltage protection, ‘OVP’, circuit configured to reduce a voltage applied to the amplifier circuit when the voltage applied to the amplifier circuit is greater than or equal to a reference voltage; a coupler configured to acquire a part of a signal output from the amplifier circuit to an antenna (Ng, Fig. 1 item 106 ¶0034); a memory (Ng, Fig. 1 item 118); and a communication processor operatively connected with the amplifier circuit and the memory (Ng, Fig. 1 items 112 120),
While Ng teaches teaches wherein the communication processor is configured to: receive, using the coupler, information on a voltage standing wave ratio, ‘VSWR’, of the signal output to the antenna, determine, based on mapping data stored in the memory in which magnitudes of the VSWR and magnitudes of the reference voltage at which the OVP circuit operates are mapped, a magnitude of the reference voltage corresponding to the VSWR, and control the OVP circuit according to the determined magnitude of the reference voltage (Ng, (Ng, ¶0027 0034 0051-0052 Fig. 6A-8B. While Ng doesn’t explicitly mention VSWR but he implicitly teaches and furthermore, it’s well-known in the art VSWR is used to protect power amplifier from operating outside of its operational range and functional failure in order to achieve a successful communication and/or operation see Arell US 6580321 for example Col 1 L15-36). Therefore, taking the combined teaching of Ng and Arell as a whole, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the instant limitation for the benefit of protecting power amplifier and/or electronic device from overvoltage and functional failure to achieve a successful communication.
3. Claim 11 is similarly analyzed as claim 1 for obviousness reason discussed above.
4. As per claim 2, Ng in view of Arell teaches the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the communication processor is further configured to adjust the reference voltage at which the OVP circuit operates using a variable resistor based on the determined magnitude of the reference voltage (Ng, ¶0048 0069).
5. Claim 12 is similarly analyzed as claim 2 for obviousness reason discussed above.
6. As per claim 3, Ng in view of Arell teaches the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the communication processor is further configured to: determine the reference voltage at which the OVP circuit operates to have a first magnitude (Ng, ¶0045) based on the VSWR of the signal output to the antenna exceeding a designated value (Arell, Col 1 L15-36), and determine the reference voltage at which the OVP circuit operates to have a value higher than the first magnitude or determine not to change the reference voltage at which the OVP circuit operates (Ng, ¶0057 - 0058) based on the VSWR of the signal output to the antenna being less than the designated value (Arell, Col 1 L15-36).
7. Claim 13 is similarly analyzed as claim 3 for obviousness reason discussed above.
8. As per claim 10, Ng in view of Arell teaches the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the mapping data includes a table in which magnitudes of the VSWR (Arell, Col 1 L15-36) and magnitudes of the reference voltage at which the OVP circuit operates are mapped (Ng, ¶0051-0053).
9. Claim 19 is similarly analyzed as claim 10 for obviousness reason discussed above.
Allowable Subject Matter
10. Claims 4-9, 14-18 and 20 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
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ZEWDU A. KASSA
Examiner
Art Unit 2637
/ZEWDU A KASSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635
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