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.
Claim(s) 1-3 and 6-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hirao et al. (US 20200135396).
As to claim 1, Hirao et al.’s figure 2 shows an electronic component comprising: a multilayer body including a plurality of stacked dielectric layers (121, 122); an external electrode (top 14a or 14b) disposed on at least one surface of external surfaces of the multilayer body; and internal electrodes (13a and/or 13b) disposed respectively in the plurality of stacked dielectric layers of the multilayer body and connected to the external electrode, wherein at least one cavity (20) is provided in a part of the dielectric layers between the internal electrodes, the at least one cavity being provided in a range of 10 mm to 200 mm in a first direction from a connecting position where the external electrode is connected to the internal electrodes, the internal electrodes extending in the first direction (¶0056 teaches that dimension of the cavity. As shown in the figure, the distance between the cavity and the connecting position is about the width of the cavity. Therefore, selecting the position as claimed is seen as an obvious design preference to ensure optimum performance, MPEP 2144.05).
As to claim 2, Hirao et al.’s figure 2 shows that the at least one cavity is provided in a range of 10 mm to 100 mm in the first direction from the connecting position (as seen in the figure, the distance between the cavity and the connecting position is about width of the cavity. Therefore, selecting the position as claimed is seen as an obvious design preference to ensure optimum performance, MPEP 2144.05).
As to claim 3 selecting the position as claimed is seen as an obvious design preference to ensure optimum performance, MPEP 2144.05.
As to claims 6 and 7, selecting the at least one cavity to be provided in 10% or 50% more of the dielectric layers disposed between the internal electrodes is seen as an obvious design preference to ensure optimum performance, MPEP 2144.05.
As to claim 8, the figure shows that the at least one cavity is provided in all of the dielectric layers disposed between the internal electrodes.
As to claim 9, the figure shows that the internal electrodes are disposed on two or more of the dielectric layers of the multilayer body.
As to claim 10, selecting the internal electrodes to be disposed on 10 or more of the dielectric layers of the multilayer body is seen as an obvious design preference (the number of electrodes and layers determines the capacitance of the device).
Claim 11 recites similar limitations in claims above. Therefore, it is rejected for the same reasons.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-5 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.
Claims 12-14 are allowed.
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/QUAN TRA/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2843
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