DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to applicant’s amendment filed on 1/27/2026. Claims 1-214 and 6-21 are under consideration. The allowability of claims 13-16 are withdrawn. New ground of rejections for claims 13-16 over Pezeshki in view Gnauck is set forth herein.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the limitation “one or more couplers are between the coupling point and the respective splitter” must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
The newly submitted Fig. 2 changing the arrow to a line to reference 210 does not remedy the deficiency of the specifics of the claim limitation above.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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.
Claim 6 recites the limitation "the plurality of waveguide arms is a pair of rib waveguides" in lines 1-2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 6, perhaps, should recite “the first and second waveguide arms are a pair of rib waveguides” to be consistent with the amendment of claim 1 line 11.
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.
Claims 1-4, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki et al. (US 2020/0249395 A1, hereinafter “Pezeshki”) in view of Daunt et al. (US 9,172,472 B2, hereinafter “Daunt”).
Claim 1. Pezeshki discloses a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) including at least one PIC subcircuit comprising:
one or more couplers (not labeled – annotated in duplicated figure below) positioned at a coupling point of the PIC subcircuit (see annotated Fig. 4D) and configured to connect a light source (411a-d) to the PIC subcircuit at the coupling point;
a splitter (415c) directly coupled to the coupling point of the PIC subcircuit through the one or more couplers and configured to split an input of the splitter into first and second outputs, wherein the one or more couplers are between the coupling point and the splitter;
a connecting waveguide including first and second waveguide arms (outputs from splitter 415d), wherein the first waveguide arm is configured to receive the first output of the splitter, and
modulators (413a-d) configured to receive the first and second output of the splitter from the first waveguide arm and second waveguide arm and produce a modulated optical signal using the first and second outputs of the splitter.
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Pezeshki does not explicitly disclose:
a single modulator configured to:
receive the first output of the splitter form the first waveguide arm;
receive the second output of the splitter from the second waveguide arm; and
produce a modulated optical signal using the first and second outputs of the splitter.
Daunt teaches a single modulator (1) configured to receive a first output of the splitter (Y junction at 21 and as explained in Col. 1, lines 27-44) ) from the first waveguide arm (child MZI 30); receive the second output of the splitter (Y junction at 21) from the second waveguide arm (child MZI 40); and produce a modulated optical signal using the first and second outputs of the splitter (Col. 3, line 63 to Col 4, line 32).
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It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time of filing to recognize the single modulator provided with nested Mach-Zehnder interferometers coupled to a single control device would be modifiable to the multiple Mach-Zehnder interferometer modulators of Pezeshki. Daunt teaches known prior arts which use multiple, individually controlled electrode segments for each optical path in the modulator are employed to mitigate nonlinearity of the relation between the electrode voltage and the resulting refractive index of the waveguide materials. However, the prior arts of multiple, individually controlled electrode segments for each optical path in the modulator is a complex structure, requiring many electrical contact points and relatively large build dimensions. As such, one would be motivated to modify the single modulator of Daunt so that the modulator can be driven by a driver with only simple control logic (Control Device 50) and such implementation would achieve high power transmission (Col. 2, lines 15-25).
Claim 2. Pezeshki discloses the one or more couplers is a pair of couplers, and wherein the splitter (415d) is a 2x2 splitter.
Claim 3. Pezeshki discloses the pair of couplers is a pair of grating couplers (Fig. 9; Para [0069]).
Claim 4. Pezeshki discloses the splitter is a 2x2 multimode interference splitter (Para [0043]).
Claim 19. Pezeshki discloses the apparatus comprising a parallel single mode transceiver including the PIC (para [0037]).
Claim 20. Pezeshki discloses the system comprises the PIC of claim 1; and the light source, wherein the light source is a high-power continuous wave laser (Para [0030]).
Claims 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki et al. (US 2020/0249395 A1, hereinafter “Pezeshki”) in view of Shi et al. (US 11,409,140B2, herein “Shi”).
Claim 17. Pezeshki discloses a photonic circuit (PIC) including a plurality of PIC subcircuits, wherein each PIC subcircuit comprise:
one or more respective couplers positioned at a coupling point of the PIC and configured to connect a light source to the PIC subcircuit at the coupling point;
a respective connecting waveguide;
a respective splitter (415D) directly coupled to one or more couplers and the respective connecting waveguide of the same PIC subcircuit, wherein the respective one or more couplers are between the coupling point and the respective splitter; and
a respective modulator (413a) coupled to the respective splitter of the same PIC subcircuit through the respective connecting waveguide, and
wherein the apparatus further comprises a coarse-wavelength division multiplexer (CWDM) (Para [0300]) coupled to the respective modulators of the plurality of PIC subcircuits (see annotated Fig. 4D).
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However, Pezeshki does not disclose a respective connecting waveguide including a plurality of waveguide arms wherein each waveguide arm of the respective connecting waveguide is configured to connect a respective one of the first and second outputs of the respective splitter of the same PIC subcircuit to the respective modulator.
Shi teaches a modulator (212 in Fig. 6) is configured to produce a modulated optical signal using the first and second outputs of the splitter (261) and a connecting waveguide (at Y-branch) including a plurality of waveguide arms (262, 264), wherein each waveguide arm is configured to connect a respective one of the first and second outputs of the splitter to the modulator (212) (Col. 10, lines 30-60).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to recognize the double modulator arms architecture of Shi would have been interchangeable with the single modulator arm architecture of Pezeshki. One would be motivated to provide the double modulator arms such that both the first and second arm portions are driven simultaneously to opposite directions so that the total phase shift can be doubled (Col. 10, lines 45-60).
Claim 18. Pezeshki discloses an edge coupler configured to interface the CWDM with an optical fiber (Para [0072]).
Claims 6-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki in view of Daunt as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Gnauck et al. (US 5,303,079, hereinafter “Gnauck”).
Pezeshki / Daunt teach the invention of claim 5, however, Pezeshki / Daunt do not explicitly disclose the plurality of waveguide arms is a pair of rib, nor does Pezeshki / Daunt teach the plurality of waveguide arms is a pair of strip waveguides.
Gnauck teaches two embodiments of Mach-Zehnder modulator. In Fig. 8, Gnauck teaches the plurality of waveguide arms is a pair of rib waveguides. In Fig. 3, Gnauck teaches the plurality of waveguide arms is a pair of strip waveguides.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to recognize the two types of planar waveguides employed for Mach-Zehnder modulators are known and the advantages are obvious. The advantage for employing a rib waveguide is higher signal confinement but at the disadvantage of slower manufacturing process. The advantage for employing strip waveguide is for the compact size and faster manufacturing process at the disadvantage of higher loss due to the low profile and rough side walls. Therefore, knowing the tradeoffs of each waveguide type it would have been obvious to employ either species of planar waveguide for design specific purposes.
Claims 13-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki in view of Gnauck.
Claim 13. Pezeshki discloses Claim 13. Pezeshki discloses a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) including at least one PIC subcircuit comprising:
one or more couplers (not labeled – annotated in duplicated figure 4D above) configured to receive the optical signal;
positioned at a coupling point of the PIC subcircuit (see annotated Fig. 4D) and configured to connect a light source (411a-d) to the PIC subcircuit at the coupling point;
a splitter (415c) directly coupled to the coupling point of the PIC subcircuit through the one or more couplers and configured to split an input of the splitter into first and second outputs, wherein the one or more couplers are between the coupling point and the splitter;
a connecting waveguide including first and second waveguide arms (outputs from splitter 415d), wherein the first waveguide arm is configured to receive the first output of the splitter, and
modulators (413a-d) configured to receive the first and second output of the splitter from the first waveguide arm and second waveguide arm and produce a modulated optical signal using the first and second outputs of the splitter.
Pezeshki does not disclose a rib waveguide configured to receive the optical signal from the one or more couplers and to lower the optical power intensity of the optical signal to below 16 dBm.
Gnauck teaches two embodiments of Mach-Zehnder modulator. In Fig. 8, Gnauck teaches the plurality of waveguide arms is a pair of rib waveguides. In Fig. 3, Gnauck teaches the plurality of waveguide arms is a pair of strip waveguides.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to recognize the two types of planar waveguides employed for Mach-Zehnder modulators are known and the advantages are obvious. The advantage for employing a rib waveguide is higher signal confinement but at the disadvantage of slower manufacturing process. The advantage for employing strip waveguide is for the compact size and faster manufacturing process at the disadvantage of higher loss due to the low profile and rough side walls. Therefore, knowing the tradeoffs of each waveguide type it would have been obvious to employ either species of planar waveguide for design specific purposes.
According to applicant’s Specification para [0025], “Rib waveguides have the effect of delaying the onset of nonlinearity for an optical signal of a given magnitude of power by several dB. This is because rib waveguides have a relatively low optical confinement and reduced edge effects due to less overlap between optical mode and edges compared to other waveguides such as single mode strip waveguides. Thus, by using rib waveguides, an optical power density input into the modulator can be further reduced.”
Thus Gnauck’s disclosure of the Mach-Zehnder modulator employing rib waveguides would have the same effect of delaying the onset of nonlinearity for an optical signal of a given magnitude of power by several dB, since this is a feature of rib waveguides.
Pezeshki in view of Gnauck do not explicitly teach the optical power intensity at or above 16 dBm. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the invention to optimize the laser optical power intensity for design specific application, since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art, In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233 (C.C.P.A. 1955). One would be motivated to employ optical power intensity in large communication network that requires high optical power intensity with power splitters and redundancy to support the communication network.
Claim 14. Pezeshki in view of Gnauck teach the rib waveguide is formed from silicon and wherein the modulator includes a doped portion formed from silicon (Gnauck: Col. 7, line 39 to Col. 8, line 11).
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki in view of Gnauck as applied to claim 14 above, and further in view of Fujikata.
Pezeshki in view of Gnauck teach the invention of claim 14, but do not teach the modulator is a Mach-Zehnder modulator configured to operate in a carrier-depletion mode.
Fujikata teaches the MZM is realized as an optical intensity modulator by configuring one arm to operate in carrier accumulation mode and the second arm to operate in the carrier depletion mode. As a result, the optical signal phase difference between the optical signals respectively transmitted through the arms is maximized (Para [0092]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was filed to recognize the method of configuring the modulator to operate in carrier accumulation mode is to provide the optical signal phase difference between the optical signals traversing through each arm for the purpose of modulating optical intensity (Para [0092]).
Claim 16. Pezeshki in view of Gnauck teach the invention of claim 13, but is silent to the rib waveguide have a lower optical confinement than a strip waveguide of comparable width. The examiner takes OFFICIAL NOTICE that this is a feature that makes strip waveguide and rib waveguide distinguishable to one skilled in the art at the time of filing, and also as evidenced by applicant’s disclosure in Para [0025]).
Claims 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki in view of Daunt as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Lipson et al. (US 2011/0102804 A1, hereinafter “Lipson”).
Pezeshki / Daunt teach the invention of claim 1, but do not explicitly teach the waveguide width and height and wherein the connecting waveguide is formed from silicon.
Lipson teaches the waveguide arm height fixed at 250 nm. (Para [0038]) and the width is calculated to be 450 nm for an uncompensated device with constant waveguide width (Para [0042]), (Eq. (1)-(3)). Lipson further teaches the connecting waveguide is silicon waveguide (Para [0034]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to optimize the waveguide dimensions (e.g., height and width) depending on the effective index and the operating wavelength, since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art, In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233 (C.C.P.A. 1955).
Claims 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki in view of Daunt as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Fujikata et al. (US 2012/0003767 A1, hereinafter “Fujikata”).
Claim 10. Pezeshki / Daunt teach the Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) of claim 1, but Pezeshki /Daunt do not disclose the (MZM) is configured to operate in a carrier-depletion mode.
Fujikata teaches the MZM is realized as an optical intensity modulator by configuring one arm to operate in carrier accumulation mode and the second arm to operate in the carrier depletion mode. As a result, the optical signal phase difference between the optical signals respectively transmitted through the arms is maximized (Para [0092]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was filed to recognize the method of configuring the modulator to operate in carrier accumulation mode is to provide the optical signal phase difference between the optical signals traversing through each arm for the purpose of modulating optical intensity (Para [0092]).
Claim 11. Pezeshki / Daunt teach the PIC subcircuit is configured to transmit optical signals using an advanced modulation format PAM4 (Para [0044]).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki in view of Daunt.
Pezeshki / Daunt teach invention of claim 1, but Pezeshki / Daunt do not explicitly teach the optical signal having a wavelength between 1310-1320 nm and received at a power level between 16-18 dBm, an attenuation of the optical signal at the at least one PIC subcircuit is between about -0.25 dB and about -1.25 dB. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to employ an optical modulator of Pezeshki / Daunt in a modulated laser system having specifications for producing the narrow linewidth signals. The optimal ranges as recited in claim would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art, In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233 (C.C.P.A. 1955).
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki in view of Daunt as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Lebby et al. (US 2020/0183201 A1, herein “Lebby”)..
Pezeshki / Daunt teach the photonic integrated circuit including the PIC subcircuit as recited in claim 1. Pezeshki / Daunt is silent to the splitter is directly coupled to the one or more couplers such that there is no waveguide between the coupling point of the PIC and the splitter.
Lebby teaches a monolithic photonic integrated circuit (PIC 10 as shown in Fig. 1A-1C). A monolithic laser (13) formed in/on platform (12) as part of platform (12) and a modulator (14, includes a splitter) monolithically built onto platform (12). The polymer structure is isolated from the laser (13) by a small etched gap (15) which results in free-space optical coupling between laser (13) and modulator (14).
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention integrate the laser source(s) and modulator(s) monolithically on a III-V semiconductor substrate (InP), as well-known in to practitioners in manufacturing optoelectronic devices such as PIC. By integrating the laser and the modulator in a PIC, the device can be avoid alignment issues and increase yield and duplicate dense network through manufacturing process. One motivation for integrating the laser and the modulator on a III-V is to improve performance of photonic integrated circuit and reduce cost of manufacturing the PIC.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) s 1-4, 6-21 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Erin D Chiem whose telephone number is (571)272-3102. The examiner can normally be reached 10 am - 6 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas A. Hollweg can be reached at (571) 270-1739. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ERIN D CHIEM/Examiner, Art Unit 2874
/THOMAS A HOLLWEG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2874
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