Non-Final Rejection
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This application was filed with claims 1-24. The examiner issued a restriction requirement on 11/6/2025, grouping claims 1-8 in Group I and claims 9-24 in Group II. On 1/2/2026 applicant filed a response electing group II without traverse and amending claims 1-24. Claims 1-8 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
In the 1/2/2026 response applicant amended claims 1-8 and requested that, if claims 9-24 are allowed, claims 1-8 be rejoined because claim 1 as amended “recites features similar to the features” of claim 9. This is not the standard. The MPEP explains:
In order to be eligible for rejoinder, a claim to a nonelected invention must depend from or otherwise require all the limitations of an allowable claim. A withdrawn claim that does not require all the limitations of an allowable claim will not be rejoined. Furthermore, where restriction was required between a product and a process of making and/or using the product, and the product invention was elected and subsequently found allowable, all claims to a nonelected process invention must depend from or otherwise require all the limitations of an allowable claim for the claims directed to that process invention to be eligible for rejoinder. See MPEP § 821.04(b). In order to retain the right to rejoinder, applicant is advised that the claims to the nonelected invention(s) should be amended during prosecution to require the limitations of the elected invention. Failure to do so may result in a loss of the right to rejoinder.
MPEP 821.04 (emphasis added). The nonelected claims do not include all of the features of any of claims 9-24. This is plainly seen without significant analysis—claim 1 is 5 lines long while claim 9 is 28 lines long. Claim 2 gets closer but still does not include all of the limitations of claim 9, much less the claims indicated as allowable. Even if claim 9 was allowable, rejoinder is not considered appropriate at this time. If applicant disagrees, it should point out in detail how the nonelected claims include all of the limitations of any allowable claim. Rejoinder will be considered if the nonelected claims are amended to depend from or include all limitations of an allowable claim.
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 9, 12, 14, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2020/0280173 (“Gao”) in view of US 9,608,406 (“Lee”), and further in view of US 2016/0299228 (“Maleki”) and US 2019/0146091 (“Matsko”).
Regarding claim 9, Gao discloses in Fig. 2 and the discussion thereof:
A tunable solid-state laser device [0002] comprising:
a semiconductor-based gain chip 104; and
a silicon photonic filter chip 102 with tuning capability,
wherein the silicon photonic filter chip comprises:
a connection silicon waveguide (waveguide between 116 and 118),
at least two ring resonators 122,126 formed with silicon waveguides,
one or more interfacing silicon waveguides 120,128 coupled with the at least two ring resonators, and
a respective heater 130, 132 associated with each ring resonator of the at least two ring resonators,
wherein the one or more interfacing silicon waveguides are configured to redirect light resonant with each of the at least two ring resonators back through the connection silicon waveguide, [0062]-[0066].
Gao does not describe a phase modulator as claimed. Lee is a similar type of system, gain chip coupled to a silicon photonic chip to form a tunable external cavity laser, see col. 1 lines 14-16, Fig. 1 and discussion thereof. Lee further teaches that there may be a phase modulator 150 on the chip comprising a heater interfaced with the waveguide. Col. 6 lines 39-50. It is noted the phase modulator may also be on the gain chip as 152 like the other alternative. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill to include such a phase modulator as this is the use of a known technique to improve similar devices in the same way. MPEP 2143 I.C. Gao is a base device like the claimed invention but lacking the phase modulator, though this is found in Lee, a comparable device. A person of ordinary skill could have used the phase modulator in Gao and the result of the combination would have been predictable. Those skilled in the laser art know that lasers are often phase modulated for various reasons for many different applications, and a person of ordinary skill would know how to implement such phase modulation as needed for their particular application.
Gao further discloses wherein the connection silicon waveguide of the silicon photonic filter chip is coupled to the semiconductor-based gain chip with a spot size converter 116 to provide for mode size matching to reduce loss due to an interface between the connection silicon waveguide and the semiconductor-based gain chip, (see [0061]).
Gao does not disclose “wherein chirping a voltage of the heater interfaced with the connection silicon waveguide chirps a laser output frequency.” Gao does recognize that the heaters may be used to control and tune the frequency of the laser. [0044], [0059], [0067], [0071], but there is nothing about chirp.
Maleki describes an analogous type of laser, it generally uses WGM resonators but can use a laser with ring resonator on Si chip, Fig. 6C, similar to Gao. Maleki states that introducing chirp is necessary for a particular type of LIDAR. [0006]-[0009]. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use Gao’s laser in such a system because LIDAR has become increasingly important as a field, and Maleki suggests that this type of laser may be useful in LIDAR. In that case it would also have been obvious to introduce chirp. While Maleki uses heaters for tuning, it generates chirp in other ways. However Matsko is another reference similar to Maleki (with common applicant and inventor), and Maleki says that the heater on the resonator can be used to generate the chirp. [0040] (modulating the resonator heater, i.e. chirping it, can create the chirp), [0033] (chirp can be created by altering temperature of resonator). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to introduce cheap via the resonator heater because Matsko suggests that is one way to do it, and it would be reasonably easy to do in Gao since we already have heaters at the resonators.
Regarding claim 12, Gao shows the one or more interfacing silicon waveguides are two interfacing silicon waveguides 120/128 that branch at splitter/coupler 118 connected to the connecting waveguide, each interfacing silicon waveguides coupling to separate respective ring resonator, and further comprising a coupling element 124 coupling the respective ring resonators while reversing the direction of light propagation relative to the gain chip. [0062]-[0066].
Regarding claim 14, the Gao gain chip comprises indium phosphide. [0077].
Claim 24 is a LIDAR system using the laser of claim 9. The rejection of claim 9 already shows it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use the laser with a LIDAR system. The additional limitations found in claim 24 are essentially just the definition of a LIDAR system—transmitter to project light, receiver to receive reflected light, the transmitter transmitting light in various directions at appropriate times to assemble a three dimensional image of objects in a field of view. See also Fig. 3 of Matsko. These features are therefore also found in the combination of references.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao, Lee, Maleki, and Matsko as applied to claim 9, and further in view of US 2017/0040773 (“Chimot”).
Chimot describes a similar type of tunable laser, with laser 3 coupled to ring resonator having heaters 5 for tuning, and also teaches that the output may be at the other (distal) end and includes a lasing waveguide 8. [0063]. To the extent that there is any separation between the waveguide and amplification section 8 this may be considered a “coupler” even if butt-coupled as that is just a broad term. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to include such lasing waveguide as it provides additional amplification if needed to compensate for losses in the device, as taught by Chimot.
Claims 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao, Lee, Maleki, and Matsko as applied to claim 9, and further in view of Watts et al., Adiabatic Resonant Microrings (ARMs) with Directly Integrated Thermal Microphotonics, Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, Optical Society of America, 2009 (“Watts”).
Regarding claim 15, Gao does not show a widened portion for the ring resonators as claimed. Watts teaches that microring resonator filers such as those in Gao may include a widened segment between single mode segments (page 2 first sentence) with the heaters located in the core level at the widened segments (page 2 second paragraph). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to do this as it enables the heaters to be formed within the resonator, enabling lower power and increased tuning speed as taught by Watts (first page, end of section 1).
Regarding claims 16-17, the limitations are not taught by Gao. But as discussed above re: claim 9 and obvious in view of Lee, the connection silicon waveguide may have a heater as the phase modulator therein. The teachings of Watts are therefore also applicable here—it would have been obvious to a person skilled in the art to include the heater in a curved and wider part of the waveguide, because this allows the heater to be placed within the resonator right next to the core, providing lower power and increased heating speed as taught by Watts.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10, 11, and 18-23 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.
Regarding claim 10, there is not taught or disclosed in the prior art the tunable laser device of claim 9, wherein a synchronized chirp signal is sent simultaneously to the heater for the connection silicon waveguide and the two ring heaters to extend the chirped bandwidth and wherein the ring resonators are designed to have the same thermal properties such that a single signal can provide for the synchronized chirp by designing the cavity phase adjustment signal to have the same response as the ring resonator.
Regarding claim 11, there is not taught or disclosed in the prior art the tunable laser device of claim 9, wherein a chirp signal is sent simultaneously to the gain chip and the two ring heaters to extend the chirped bandwidth and wherein the ring resonators are designed to have the same thermal properties such that a single signal can provide for a synchronized chirp of the ring resonators.
Regarding claim 18, there is not taught or disclosed in the prior art the tunable laser device of claim 9, wherein the cavity phase modulator and the two ring heaters are designed for adjusting the current simultaneously to all three heaters to chirp the laser frequency.
Claims 19-23 depend from claim 18 and are allowable for the same reasons.
Conclusion
US 2010/0085992 is a different type of laser, but suggests that chirp is desirable in LIDAR systems, [0047]-[0048], and also that temperature can be used to control the chirp, [0077].
US 2022/0094140 also describes chirp is desired in certain types of LIDAR system.
US 2005/0286588, US 2011/0134957, EP 3404780 are each a different kind of laser but teach that chirp may be controlled by temperature changes.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to James Menefee whose telephone number is (571)272-1944. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7-4.
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/JAMES A MENEFEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2828