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 § 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 9-10 and 18 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 9, Line 1; Claim 10, Line 1; and Claim 18, Line 1, “pitches of the capacitor fingers” is unclear to one of ordinary skill in the art as to how this recitation is related to “the first pitch” and “the second pitch” as defined in claims 1 and 17, from which these claims depends (i.e. the same pitches, differing and distinct pitches, etc.), 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, 3-4, 8, 11-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Urata (US 10804881).
As per Claims 1, 3-4, 8, 11-17 and 19-20:
Urata discloses in Figure 9A:
(as per claims 1, 17 and 19) An acoustic wave device (“SAW device”, as shown in related Figure 1) comprising a piezoelectric layer (“piezoelectric substrate”, 13, as shown in related Fig 4) having a first region (R1, as defined in Image 1 below, corresponding to the region of the “capacitance element”, 31, as further shown in related Fig 4) and second region (R2, as defined in Image 1 below, corresponding to the region of the “SAW resonator” 25, as further shown in related Fig 4), an IDT (interdigital transducer) capacitor (“capacitance element”, 931) in the first region (R1) positioned (as per claim 12) along a wave propagation direction of an acoustic wave resonator (31, as shown in related Fig 4 and corresponding to 931 is positioned on one side of the propagation direction, [Col. 8, Lines 33-35]) and (as per claim 8) free from an acoustic reflector (capacitance element 931 is free from a reflector on the upper side, as shown in Fig 9A) and including capacitor fingers (“electrode fingers”, 933b) including a first pair of adjacent capacitor fingers (F1, as defined in Image 2 below, corresponding to the first pair of fingers 933b) with a first pitch (“pitch”, p) and a second pair of adjacent capacitor fingers (F2, as defined in Image 2 below, corresponding to the second pair of fingers 933b) having a second pitch (“changed pitch”, 2p) different than the first pitch (2p is two times the pitch of “p”, therefore they are necessarily differing) and (as per claim 4) is at least 3% greater than the first pitch (p, since 2p is two time the pitch of p, the second pitch is necessarily at least 3% greater than the first pitch), both extending from a bus bar (“bus bars”, 29a) , (as per claim 14) the piezoelectric layer (13, as shown in related Fig 4) positioned between a support substrate (“support substrate”, 15, as shown in related Fig 4) and the IDT electrode (5, 13 is positioned between 15 and 5, as shown in related Fig 4) and (as per claim 15) an intermediate layer (“bonding layer” causing piezoelectric substrate 13 and support substrate 15 to adhere to each other, not shown in the figures, [Col. 4, Lines 24-26]) between the support substrate (15) and piezoelectric layer (13, as shown in related Fig 4), (as per claims 1 and 19) the acoustic wave resonator (“SAW resonator”, 25) in the second region (R2) having the IDT electrode (“IDT electrode” 5) in communication with the piezoelectric layer (IDT electrode 5 is on the piezoelectric substrate and therefore necessarily in communication, as shown in related Fig 4) and including resonator fingers (“electrode fingers”, 29b) having a pair of adjacent resonator fingers with a third pitch (“pitch”, p, of electrode fingers 29b) being different than the first (p) and second pitch (2p, the pitch p of 33b, corresponding to 933b is 1.5 – 3 times the pitch p of electrode fingers 29b, [Col. 8, Lines 30-32], as shown in related Fig 4), the (as per claim 16) IDT capacitor (31) in parallel with the acoustic wave resonator (25, capacitance element 31 is connected in parallel to IDT electrode 5, [Col. 8, Lines 53-54], corresponding to a portion of SAW resonator 25, therefore 31 is necessarily connected in parallel to 25) and (as per claim 19) the acoustic wave resonator (25) and a plurality of additional acoustic wave resonators (plurality of serial resonators 25, [Col. 6, Lines 19-25]) are configured to filter the radio frequency filter (the plurality of serial resonators 25 form a ladder type filter, [Col. 6, Lines 19-28], and necessarily achieve radio frequency filtering) and (as per claim 20) a second acoustic wave resonator of the plurality of additional acoustic wave resonators (one of the plurality of serial resonators 25, as shown in related Fig 13) is in parallel (capacitance element 31 is connected in parallel to IDT electrode 5, [Col. 8, Lines 53-54], which is a portion of serial resonator 25) with a second interdigital transducer capacitor (a capacitance element 31 is provided to any IDT electrode 5, [Col. 20, Lines 29-30] and a plurality of capacitance elements 31 can be provided per IDT electrode 5, [Col. 9, Lines 3-6]), (as per claim 13) the capacitor fingers (933b) between a high viscosity material (“protective layer” 35, 33b corresponding to 933b is disposed between 13 and 35, as shown in related Fig 4) and the piezoelectric layer (13), the high viscosity material (35) having a higher viscosity than the piezoelectric layer (13, 35 is formed of SiO2 while 13 is formed of LiTaO3 and SiO2 has a higher viscosity than LiTaO3, as is known to one of ordinary skill in the art), and (as per claim 3) a number of the resonator fingers (29b) being greater than a number of capacitor fingers (933b, there is necessarily more fingers 29b than 933b, as shown in Fig 9A) and the interdigital transducer capacitor (as per claim 11) generates substantially no aggregate resonance (a standing wave is not formed over the electrode fingers and resonance through the acoustic wave is suppressed and therefore necessarily has no aggregate resonance, [Col. 12, Lines 53-57], as shown in related Fig 5A).
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Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 5-7 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 ABIGAIL YALDO whose telephone number is (703)756-1784. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 7 AM - 4 PM.
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/ABIGAIL AMIR YALDO/Examiner, Art Unit 2843
/ANDREA LINDGREN BALTZELL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2843
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