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, 12, 17 and claims bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as anticipated by or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over SAKIMURA US 20160291137 A1(D1).
Regarding claims 1,12 17 D1 teaches
1. An optical sensing system for two-dimensional (2D) environmental sensing, comprising:
a tunable laser source, configured to emit optical signals with varying wavelengths;(claim 2)
a grating scanner(9), configured to rotate around a rotational axis to scan the optical signals with the varying wavelengths in a first dimension towards an environment surrounding the optical sensing system, [0139]
wherein the 1D grating scanner comprises a grating structure configured to scan the optical signals with the varying wavelengths along different directions in a second dimension towards the environment at each rotation angle; and(fig. 2 with [0139])
a receiver, configured to receive at least a portion of the optical signals with the varying wavelengths reflected from the environment.(title inherent)
controller(controller which controls driving unit 19) configured to control a rotation speed(at least switching between on and off state to rotate) of the 1D grating scanner according to a target resolution for the 2D environmental sensing; (it is implicitly present in[0139])
Although does not explicitly say
a one-dimensional grating scanner (art by D1 does not care about 1D or 2D grating and therefore can use any one of it and in addition even if we assume that D1 uses 2D grating any 2D grating includes in itself 1D grating.)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 as it will perform exactly as indicated in D1 and in addition any 2D grating includes in itself 1D grating.
2. The optical sensing system of claim 1, wherein the optical signals emitted by the tunable laser source have wavelengths varying at a predefined rate.(implicit any varying laser should include some type of rate of change, In any case if not explicit then it is just an obvious modification in order to obtain for example frequency sweep)
3, 13 The optical sensing system of claim 1, wherein the optical signals emitted by the tunable laser source have wavelengths varying at a varying rate, wherein the optical sensing system further comprises a controller configured to control the varying rate.(matter of design choice for example to obtain for example sawtooth frequency sweeps which are well known)
4, 14 The optical sensing system of claim 1, wherein the optical signals emitted by the tunable laser source have varying wavelengths within a predefined wavelength range.[0093]
5, 18 The optical sensing system of claim 1, wherein the 1D grating scanner comprises a mass platform and the grating structure comprises at least one diffraction grating patterned on the mass platform.(obvious way of producing diffractive grating well known in the art)
6, 19 The optical sensing system of claim 5, wherein the at least one diffraction grating patterned on the mass platform comprises a set of grating slits on the mass platform. .(obvious way of producing diffractive grating well known in the art)
7, 20 The optical sensing system of claim 6, wherein the rotational axis is perpendicular to the set of grating slits.(Obvious modification well known in the art see for example WO 2021260949 A1 or US 20170139141 A1 )
8, 15 The optical sensing system of claim 1, wherein each of the emitted optical signals with the varying wavelengths is incident on the 1D grating scanner at a same incident angle with reference to a grating vector direction.(implicit single beam [0047])
9, 16 The optical sensing system of claim 1, wherein each of the emitted optical signals with the varying wavelengths is incident on the 1D grating scanner within a plane along or in parallel with the rotational axis.(obvious combination of fig. 11 with [0139] in order to provide desired scanning region/pattern)
11. The optical sensing system of claim 1, further comprising a controller configured to implement signal processing and data analysis based on the at least a portion of the optical signals with the varying wavelengths reflected from the environment.(implicit)
Claim(s) 10 and claims bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as anticipated by or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over SAKIMURA US 20160291137 A1(D1) in view of D2 WO 2021260949.
Although D1 does not teach D2 teaches
10. The optical sensing system of claim 1, further comprising a controller configured to control a rotation speed of the 1D grating scanner according to a target resolution for the 2D environmental sensing.(page 23)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 with teaching by D2 in order to obtain desired resolution.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/HOVHANNES BAGHDASARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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