DETAILED ACTION
1. 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 § 102
2. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
3. Claims 1, 11, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Prior art (Fig. 1 in Applicant’s specification (see, paragraph [0025]) and drawings (see, fig. 1), hereinafter AF1)
Regarding claim 1, AF1 discloses in figure 1 and specification:
A laser driver chipset for providing a signal to a laser diode (see, 170, fig.1)
comprising;
a variable gain amplifier (VGA) circuit (see, 110, fig. 1) configured to:
receive an input signal, wherein the input signal has a variable swing amplitude (inherent due to input range, see, paragraph [0025] in Applicant’s specification, here, predriver, see also, paragraph [0002] in Applicant’s specification, here, The inventive concepts herein aim to use a variable gain amplifier (VGA) in the predriver stage to automatically modify a predriver output swing to the value needed by a driver to supply a desired modulation current ); modulate the variable swing amplitude of the input signal to produce a fixed swing amplitude (inherent due to gain range);
a laser driver circuit (see, 130, fig. 1) configured to:
receive a VGA output signal (see, 150, fig. 1) from the VGA circuit; and generate a linear output response (inherent due to gain range) to the input signal such that it provides an output current (see, 160, fig. 1) to drive the laser diode.
.
PNG
media_image1.png
322
398
media_image1.png
Greyscale
Regarding claim 11, AF1 discloses in figure 1 and specification the laser driver of claim 1, wherein the laser driver circuit comprises a DML driver that electrically couples with a cathode and an anode of the laser diode (inherent since these are the configuration of DML(direct modulation laser) for driving the laser diode.)
Regarding claim 20, AF1 discloses in figure 1 and specification the laser driver of claim 1, wherein the fixed swing amplitude is user-programmed (examiner notes that second loop for modulating the variable swing amplitude of the input signal to produce a fixed or user programmed swing amplitude).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
5. Claims 16, 18, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Prior art (AF1) in view of Raring et al. (US 20190179016).
Regarding claim 16, AF1 discloses in Fig. 1 and the specification he laser driver of claim 1.
However, AF1 is silent as to the limitation of “the laser diode is an edge emitting (ED) diode or a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) diode”.
Raring et al. discloses the limitation of “the laser diode is an edge emitting (ED)
diode or a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) diode” (see, paragraph [0491], here, VCSEL).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine the limitation of the limitation of “the laser diode is an edge emitting (ED) diode or a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) diode” with a laser driver chipset of AF1 because selecting VCSEL allows for making ideal for high speed modulation, wherein modulation bandwidths of greater than 10 GHz, greater than 20 GHz, and greater than 30 GHz are possible(see, paragraph [0491]).
Regarding claim 18, AF1 discloses in Fig. 1 and the specification the laser driver of claim 1.
However, AF1 is silent as to the limitation of “the input signal is a NRZ signal”.
Raring et al. discloses the limitation of “the input signal is a NRZ signal” (see,
paragraph [0496].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine the limitation of the limitation of ““the input signal is a NRZ signal” with a laser driver chipset of AF1 because selecting NRZL allows for common variants of OOK digital encoding formats (see, paragraph [0496]).
Regarding claim 19, AF1 discloses in Fig. 1 and the specification the laser driver of claim 1.
However, AF1 is silent as to the limitation of “the detector receives a voltage target from at least one of VCSEL, DML, and a EML target voltage generator.”.
Raring et al. discloses the limitation of “the detector receives a voltage target
from at least one of VCSEL, DML, and a EML target voltage generator.” (see, paragraph [0543].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the
art at the time of invention to combine the limitation of the limitation of ““laser driver of claim 1, wherein the detector receives a voltage target from at least one of VCSEL, DML, and a EML target voltage generator” with a laser driver chipset of AF1 because selecting detector allows for dynamic feature activated by a feedback loop including a sensor (see, paragraph [0543]).
6. Claims 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Prior art (AF1) in view of Asada et al. (US 20030117923).
Regarding claim 17, AF1 discloses in Fig. 1 and the specification the laser driver of claim 1.
However, AF1 is silent as to the limitation of “the input signal is a PAM4 signal”.
Asada et al. discloses the limitation of “the input signal is a PAM4 signal” (see,
paragraph [0035].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine the limitation of the limitation of ““the input signal is a PAM4 signal” with a laser driver chipset of AF1 because selecting PAM4 signal allows for storing high frequency control Timing parameters (see, paragraph [0435]).
Allowable Subject Matter
7. Claims 2-10 and 12-15 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.
Conclusion
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Kinam Park whose telephone number is (571) 270-1738. The examiner can normally be reached on from 9:00 AM-5:00 PM. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, MINSUN HARVEY, can be reached on (571) 272-1835. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/KINAM PARK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2828