Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1, 5, and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by JP 3-175406 A (already of record via information disclosure statement).
Claim 1: '406 discloses an optical connector comprising:
a ferrule 1 that holds a plurality of optical fibers 2 in a state where end faces of the plurality of optical fibers are arranged on a same plane; and
a refractive index matching portion 3 that is deformable, in close contact with the end faces of the plurality of optical fibers arranged on the ferrule, and performs matching of a refractive index with the plurality of optical fibers.
Claim 5: Each end face of the plurality of optical fibers is perpendicular to an optical axis of each optical fiber (fig. 2).
Claim 7: The process of assembling the '406 connector includes steps of:
fixing a plurality of optical fibers 2 to a ferrule 1 in a state where end faces of the plurality of optical fibers are arranged on a same plane; and
forming a refractive index matching portion 3 that is deformable and performs matching of a refractive index with the plurality of optical fibers in a region of a connection end face of the ferrule where the end faces of the plurality of optical fibers are arranged where the end faces of the plurality of optical fibers are exposed.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 6, and 8 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 base claim 1 and any intervening claims. The applied JP 3-175406 A reference does not disclose or suggest, alone or in combination with the other prior art of record, the additional features of claims 2-4 and 6 or the further method steps of claim 8.
Conclusion
The references listed on the attached 892 form are considered generally relevant to the subject matter of this application.
Contact Information
Examiner: 571-272-2360
Examiner's direct supervisor: 571-272-2397
Official correspondence by fax: 571-273-8300
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/Michael Stahl/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2874
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