On 2/7/12 6:30 PM, Jim Lux wrote:
> Some of the claims, if litigated, would probably fail as non-novel.
> Claim 19 is basically a generalized phased array.
>
having just read the re-examination request..
Given the prior art submitted (an article from the internet in 2001 on a
4 square array), the examiner identified how the patent's claim 19 is
sufficiently novel based on that reference.
A lot has to do with the arrangement of the combiners and transformers,
which apparently wasn't described anywhere else. Most phased array
references talk about the general principle of phasing, and describe
some simple phasing schemes, but NOT the specific one claimed in the patent.
Whether that would be obvious to one skilled in the art is another
question, but at some point, things that look obvious in retrospect
really are novel when you start.
Some years ago, I came up with a clever switching arrangement of
"baseball switches" to switch N amplifiers to N antennas in a variety of
ways, and while they didn't seek a patent, they DID do a fairly
extensive search and couldn't find any prior art, so it's possible that
a patent would have issued. As it happens, there wasn't any significant
commercial advantage to be gained by patenting, so it was just published
for the whole world to see.
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