Ex Parte Okamoto et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 2, 201813639119 (P.T.A.B. May. 2, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/639,119 10/03/2012 127615 7590 05/04/2018 LANDO & ANASTASI, LLP Skyworks Filter Solutions Japan Co., LTD. ONE MAIN STREET, SUITE 100 CAMBRIDGE, MA 02142 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Shoji Okamoto UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www .uspto.gov ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. S2199-7010US 2038 EXAMINER ROSENAU, DEREK JOHN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2837 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/04/2018 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address( es): DOCKETING@LALA W.COM CKent@LALaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SHOJI OKAMOTO, REI GOTO, HIDEKAZU NAKANISHI, and HIROYUKI NAKAMURA Appeal2017-007067 Application 13/639,119 Technology Center 2800 Before ROMULO H. DELMENDO, A VEL YN M. ROSS, and MICHAEL G. McMANUS, Administrative Patent Judges. DELMENDO, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL The Applicants (hereinafter "Appellants") 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Primary Examiner's final decision to reject claims 1-27.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm. Because we detect no reversible error in the Examiner's rejections based on the Appellants' arguments in this appeal, we adopt the 1 The Appellants identify the real party in interest as "Skyworks Panasonic Filter Solutions Japan Co., LTD." (Appeal Brief filed June 14, 2016, hereinafter "Br.," 3). 2 Br. 8-13; Final Office Action entered November 19, 2015, hereinafter "Final Act.," 2-16; Examiner's Answer entered October 3, 2016, hereinafter "Ans.," 2-3. Appeal2017-007067 Application 13/639,119 Examiner's findings and reasoning as our own and add the following for emphasis. I. BACKGROUND The subject matter on appeal relates to an acoustic wave device including a specified IDT (interdigital transducer) electrode (Specification filed October 3, 2012, hereinafter "Spec.," 1, 1. 6; 2, 1. 3-6; 7, 1. 8-9). According to the Appellants, the device "is capable of reducing insertion loss, and is applicable to electronic devices, such as mobile phones" (id. at 58, 11. 15-17). Representative claim 1 is reproduced from the Claims Appendix to the Appeal Brief (Br. 14), with key limitations emphasized, as follows: 1. An acoustic wave device comprising: a piezoelectric body; an IDT electrode disposed above the piezoelectric body, the IDT electrode exciting a main acoustic wave having a wavelength A, the IDT electrode including a first electrode layer mainly made of molybdenum disposed above the piezoelectric body and a second electrode layer mainly made of aluminum disposed above the first electrode layer, the IDT electrode having a total thickness not more than 0.15)., the first electrode layer having a thickness not less than 0. 05J..., the second electrode layer having a thickness not less than 0.025J...; a silicon oxide film disposed above the piezoelectric body and covering the IDT electrode, the silicon oxide film having a thickness between 0.2A and IA., the thickness of the first electrode layer selected based on the thickness of the silicon oxide film; and a dielectric film having a thickness between l"A, and 5A. disposed above the silicon oxide film, the dielectric film including a medium allowing a transverse wave to propagate through the medium faster than the transverse wave propagates through the silicon oxide film. 2 Appeal2017-007067 Application 13/639,119 II. REJECTIONS ON APPEAL On appeal, the Examiner maintains two rejections under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a): A. Claims 1-13, 16, 19, and 21-27 as unpatentable over Yamane et al. 3 (hereinafter "Yamane") and Kimura et al. 4 (hereinafter "Kimura"); and B. Claims 14, 15, 17, 18, and 20 as unpatentable over Yamane, Kimura, and Seki et al. 5 (hereinafter "Seki"). (Ans. 2-3; Final Act. 2-16.) III. DISCUSSION Rejection A. The Appellants argue claims 1-13, 16, 19, and 21-27 together (Br. 8-13). Therefore, we confine our discussion to claim 1, which we select as representative pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). As provided by this rule, claims 2-13, 16, 19, and 21-27 stand or fall with claim 1. The Examiner finds that Yamane describes an acoustic wave device having most of the limitations recited in claim 1, including an IDT electrode, but acknowledges that the reference does not disclose the specific IDT 3 WO 2009/133655 Al, published November 5, 2009. The Examiner relies on the corresponding United States Published Application, US 2011/0037344 Al, published February 17, 2011, as a translation (Final Act. 2). Therefore, we also rely on the US document. 4 WO 2010/070816 Al, published June 24, 2010. The Examiner relies on the corresponding United States Published Application, US 2011/0241481 Al, published October 6, 2011, as a translation (Final Act. 2). Therefore, we also rely on the US document. 5 WO 2010/122767 Al, published October 28, 2010. The Examiner relies on the corresponding United States Published Application, US 2012/0019102 Al, January 26, 2012, as a translation (Final Act. 13). 3 Appeal2017-007067 Application 13/639,119 electrode recited in the claim (Final Act. 2-3). The Examiner finds further, however, that Kimura teaches an IDT electrode, which satisfies the limitations missing in Yamane, as providing an improvement in terms of electromechanical coupling coefficient to an acoustic wave device (Final Act. 3; Ans. 2-3). The Examiner concludes from these findings that a person having ordinary skill in the art would have combined Yamane and Kimura in the manner claimed by the Appellants (Final Act. 3; Ans. 2-3). The Appellants' principal argument is that no prima facie case of obviousness exists because "the Examiner takes portions of each of Yamane and Kimura out of context and ignores portions of the references that would have discouraged one of ordinary skill in the art from making the asserted combination" (Br. 8). Specifically, the Appellants point out that Yamane requires its IDT electrode to satisfy an inequality defined as (h/A.)xa:::;0.05, where h is the thickness of the interdigital electrode, A is the period of electrode fingers of the interdigital electrode, and a is the ratio of the density of a metal of the interdigital electrode to the density of Au, but Kimura's IDT electrodes would have inequality values above the upper limit of 0.05 required by Yamane (id. at 8-11). The Appellants' argument fails to identify any reversible error in the Examiner's rejection. In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2011). As the Examiner explains (Ans. 2), Yamane's teaching regarding the inequality being less than or equal to 0.05 is disclosed in the context of a preferred embodiment-not an absolute requirement (Yamane i-f 10 ("A preferred embodiment of the present invention .... ")). Furthermore, according to the Appellants' own calculations (Br. 11 ), when molybdenum is selected as the first electrode layer as in Kimura (Kimura i-f 59), the 4 Appeal2017-007067 Application 13/639,119 resulting IDT electrode would have an inequality between 0.0529 and 0.0598-values that are very close to Yamane's 0.05 as disclosed in its preferred embodiment. In view of the closeness of such values, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have reasonably expected Kimura's IDT electrode based on molybdenum as the first electrode layer and aluminum as a second electrode layer (id. i-fi-159, 65), when implemented in Yamane, would provide beneficial results in terms of electromechanical coupling coefficient as taught by Kimura (id. i1 45). Under these circumstances, we discern no merit in the Appellants' position that a person having ordinary skill in the art would have been dissuaded from combining Kimura with Yamane. In re Urbanski, 809 F.3d 1237, 1244 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("Nothing in the prior art teaches that the proposed modification would have resulted in an 'inoperable' process."). For these reasons and those given by the Examiner, we uphold Rejection A. Rejection B. The Appellants rely on the same arguments offered for Rejection A, adding only that Seki does not cure the alleged deficiencies in the Examiner's combination of Yamane and Kimura (Br. 13). Because the Examiner's reliance on the combined teachings of Yamane and Kimura is not deficient, we uphold Rejection B for the same reasons discussed above. IV. SUMMARY Rejections A and Bare sustained. Therefore, the Examiner's final decision to reject claims 1-27 is affirmed. 5 Appeal2017-007067 Application 13/639,119 No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation