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 § 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.
Claims 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the first useful beam" in line 11. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For the purpose of examination, the examiner will interpret the limitation to mean “a first useful beam”.
Claims 2-10 are also rejected because they inherit the limitation of claim 1 from which they depend.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 2, 4 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hale (US 5,172,263) in view of Laux et al. (WO 2014067888 A2).
Regarding claim 1, Hale discloses: a. a solid active laser medium (4, titanium doped sapphire crystal) having at least two plane faces (left and right faces in Fig. 1) among: a front face (right face) suitable for receiving the beam (input beam that enters the gain medium via an optical path 8 and 12) to be amplified each time said beam passes through the active laser medium, a rear face (left face) (Fig. 1, col. 2, line 61 to col 3, line 23), the beam received (beam along optical path 12) on the front face during the first pass being called the incident beam, the beam reflected and refracted by the front face during the nth pass being called the nth useful beam (beam along optical path 16 or 26), and b. a first optical return unit (turning prisms 10, 18 and 22) arranged along the path of a first useful beam (beam along optical path 16), the first optical return unit being configured for returning the first useful beam to the front face for a second pass through the active laser medium (beam along optical path 16 is returned to the active medium and is outputted along optical path 26) (Fig. 1, col. 2, line 61 to col 3, line 23).
Hale does not disclose: and a reflecting rear face, the front face being inclined with respect to the rear face at a non-zero inclination, the rear face being suitable for being cooled, the beam reflected by the rear face, so that the sub-beams of each wavelength, forming the second useful beam, are parallel to each other at the end of the second pass.
Laux et al. disclose: a reflecting rear face (11), the front face (12) being inclined with respect to the rear face at a non-zero inclination (the front face of the medium is inclined relative to its rear face by a first non-zero inclination), the rear face being suitable for being cooled (cooling by the rear face according to the invention) (Fig. 2a, abstract, pages 3 and 4 of the translation), the beam reflected by the rear face, so that the sub-beams of each wavelength, forming the second useful beam, are parallel to each other at the end of the second pass (the beams of each wavelength are parallel to one another upon exiting the prism (4) (Fig. 2a, abstract, pages 3 and 4 of the translation). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the device of Hale by replacing the laser medium with the laser medium and cooling device of Lorber and adding the prism of Lorber in order to cool the laser medium and to output beams of each wavelength that are parallel to each other.
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Fig. 1 of Hale
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Fig. 2A of Laux
Regarding claim 2, Hale as modified disclose: wherein the first optical return unit is configured in such a way that the second useful beam is equivalent in terms of chromatic spatial dispersion to the beam which would have been obtained at the exit of a plate with plane and parallel faces from an incident beam arriving on the front face of said plate at an angle of incidence equal to the angle of incidence of the incident beam on the active laser medium (Laux et al., page 4, fourth full paragraph).
Regarding claim 4, Hale as modified disclose: wherein the front face of the active laser medium is suitable for receiving the incident beam and for reflecting a beam, called the first spurious beam, from the incident beam, the first optical return unit being arranged outside the path of the first spurious beam (the parasitic beam also called spurious pulses, is deflected on this front face by an angle 2Θ) (Laux et al., page 4, first full paragraph).
Regarding claim 10, Hale as modified disclose: wherein the last useful beam (beam on path 26) at the output of the active laser medium is called the output beam, the incident beam (beam on path 8) and the output beam being spatially shifted (Hale, Fig. 1, col. 2, line 61 to col 3, line 23).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 and 5-9 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Bunting et al. (US PG Pub 2001/0021215) disclose: the solid-state laser comprises a laser gain medium, pumping means for pumping the laser gain medium, and a laser cavity having a first end and a second end, wherein the laser gain medium is at, or in the vicinity of, said first end of said cavity. A semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) can be placed at the second end of the cavity. The laser gain medium can comprise at least one face for receiving pumping energy from the pumping means, the face being made reflective at a laser frequency of the laser, so that it can form the first end of the laser cavity. The resulting setup can used for generating femtosecond laser pulses (Abstract). Schad et al. (US PG Pub 2015/0171587) disclose: a solid-state laser arrangement, including a plate-like solid body with a laser-active medium, in which the plate-like solid body includes an upper side, a lower side and a circumferential peripheral face, and/or in which a heat sink thermally coupled to the lower side of the plate-like solid body, in which the plate-like solid body includes a scatter region on the upper side and/or on the peripheral face, and the peripheral face of the plate-like solid body includes a portion inclined relative to the upper side and the lower side (Abstract).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to XINNING(TOM) NIU whose telephone number is (571)270-1437. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:30am-6:00pm.
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/XINNING(Tom) NIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2828