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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of the Requirement for Restriction/Election in the reply filed on 3/18/2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that the Examiner must articular a substantial search burden. This is not found persuasive because the restriction was made under the unity of invention standard for the national stage of internation applications. The unity of invention standard does not have a search burden standard.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
The Examiner notes that Applicant has elected Species I.
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) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fan, Jonathan A. “Freeform metasurface design based on topology optimization.” MRS Bulletin 45 (2020): 196-201 (“Fan”) (made of record by Applicant) in view of Truby, Ryan L. and Jennifer A. Lewis. “Printing soft matter in three dimensions.” Nature 540.7633 (2016): 371-378 (“Truby”) (made of record by Applicant); Malas, Asish, et al. "Fabrication of high permittivity resin composite for vat photopolymerization 3D printing: Morphology, thermal, dynamic mechanical and dielectric properties." Materials 12.23 (2019): 3818. (“Malas”) (made of record by Applicant); US 2014/0009350 (“Lam”) (made of record by Applicant); US 2021/0088392 (“Pennsylvania” or “Kagan”) (made of record by Applicant); and US 2020/0278476 (“Negev” or “Karabchevsky”) (made of record by Applicant), as applied below.
Regarding claim 1, Fan discloses an apparatus (abstract- Metasurfaces are thin-film electromagnetic devices with subwavelength-scale geometric structuring) comprising: a.three-dimensional metamaterial, having a grayscale dielectric profile, to produce a certain electromagnetic response (Fig. 1; abstract- Metasurfaces are thin-film electromagnetic devices with subwavelength-scale geometric structuring. They can be tailored to produce a broad range of optical functions due to the strong relationship between electromagnetic response and geometric shape; pg. 201, col 1, para 2- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shapes; pg. 197, para 2- The device comprises a set of subwavelength-scale voxels and is initialized with random grayscale dielectric value; pg. 197, para 2-3 The dielectric constant at each voxel is then iterative updated using the expression for gradient descent above the condition that final devices take discrete dielectric constant values can be enforced by gradually increasing the magnitude of penalty terms in the figure of merit that penalize the presence of grayscale dielectric values).
Regarding claim 2, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial is to approximate a grayscale continuum of dielectric constants (Fig. 1; pg. 197, col 1, para 2- The device comprises a set of subwavelength- scale voxels pushing the grayscale values of (dielectric constant) (ri) toward the discrete dielectric values of silicon or air for all voxels).
Regarding claim 3, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses including an electromagnetic device having a curved shape, wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial is to conform to the curved shape (pg. 201, col 1, para 2-3- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shapes, which can access more design degrees of freedom . . . augment the optimization of freeform nanophotonic devices).
Regarding claim 4, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses including an electromagnetic device to operate via communication of radiating waves, wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial is part of the electromagnetic device and is to steer the radiating waves as a function of frequency (Fig. 2c, Fig. 2 caption Multifunctional metagratings that deflect normally incident waves of (i) two and (ii) five wavelengths to different diffraction orders; pg. 197, col 2, para 2- the device is illuminated with a plane wave that is incident from the desired beam deflection direction).
Regarding claim 5, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial includes substructures, as cells or voxels, which have irregular shapes to provide a continuum of dielectric values, with each of the substructures being associated with a permittivity appearing different for different incident light polarizations (Fig. 1c; Fig. 1 caption- The device is subdivided into voxels with tunable dielectric constant values (shades of gray) Schematics of the (top) forward and (bottom) adjoint simulations used in the adjoint variables method. With just two simulations, adjustments to the dielectric constant values at all voxel positions; pg. 201, col 1, para 2-3- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shapes, which can access more design degrees of freedom augment the optimization of freeform nanophotonic devices).
Regarding claim 9, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial is part of an interconnect to support multiple waveguide transmission modes (pg.198, col 2, para 2- the metagrating is treated as a Fabry-Perot resonator, which is an optical cavity made from two parallel reflective surfaces, and it supports geometry dependent Bloch optical modes. These modes are analogous to the spatial waveguide modes in an optical fiber and are the field profiles that would propagate without coupling through an infinitely thick metasurface).
Regarding claim 11, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial is part or result of a manufacturing system that is to produce volumetric metamaterials using an additive process to create the three-dimensional metamaterial based on an inversion design (pg. 201, col 1, para 2- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shape It is anticipated that continued advances in nanoscale manufacturing, including those in nanoscale 3D printing will enable the translation of these concepts to experimental practice.).
Regarding claim 15, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial is characterized via substructures as cells or voxels, each of the substructures being associated with at least one of a plurality of incident light polarizations and at least one dielectric constant distribution accommodating a phase shift of said at least one of a plurality of incident light polarizations (Fig. 1c; Fig. 1 caption- The device is subdivided into voxels with tunable dielectric constant values (shades of gray) Schematics of the (top) forward and (bottom) adjoint simulations used in the adjoint variables method. With just two simulations, adjustments to the dielectric constant values at all voxel positions; pg. 198, col 2, para 1-2- optimized wavelength-scale scatterers that directionally scatter incident light with tailored phases accumulate mode-dependent phase shifts described by the phase accumulation matrix; pg. 201, col 1, para 2-3- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shapes, which can access more design degrees of freedom augment the optimization of freeform nanophotonic devices).
Regarding claim 17, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial is extendible to an arbitrary geometry and is to correct for aberration and shape electromagnetic wavefronts as a function of at least one of: polarization, incident angle, and wavelength (Fig. 2c, Fig. 2 caption Multifunctional meta-gratings that deflect normally incident waves of (i) two and (ii) five wavelengths to different diffraction orders; pg. 197, col 2, para 2- the device is illuminated with a plane wave that is incident from the desired beam deflection direction; pg. 201, col 1, para 2- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shapes Theoretical analyses of multilayer metamaterials demonstrate the great potential of multilayer metamaterials to serve as high-efficiency, aberration-corrected elements).
Regarding claim 18, Fan discloses a method comprising: producing or accessing a grayscale dielectric profile associated with a certain electromagnetic response (Fig. 1; pg. 197, para 2- The device comprises a set of subwavelength-scale voxels and is initialized with random grayscale dielectric value; pg. 197, para 2-3 The dielectric constant at each voxel is then iterative updated using the expression for gradient descent above the condition that final devices take discrete dielectric constant values can be enforced by gradually increasing the magnitude of penalty terms in the figure of merit that penalize the presence of grayscale dielectric values); and via the grayscale dielectric profile, providing a three-dimensional metamaterial corresponding to the certain electromagnetic response (abstract- Metasurfaces are thin-film electromagnetic devices with subwavelength-scale geometric structuring. They can be tailored to produce a broad range of optical functions due to the strong relationship between electromagnetic response and geometric shape; pg. 201, col 1, para 2- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shapes).
Regarding claim 19, Fan discloses the method of claim 18. Fan further discloses wherein producing or accessing a grayscale dielectric profile includes using an algorithm, involving topology optimization or an inversion design, to create the grayscale dielectric profile for the certain electromagnetic response, and wherein providing a three-dimensional metamaterial corresponding to the certain electromagnetic response includes using an additive process to form the three-dimensional metamaterial (abstract- Metasurfaces are thin-fiIm electromagnetic devices with subwavelength-scale geometric structuring. They can be tailored to produce a broad range of optical functions due to the strong relationship between electromagnetic response and geometric shape topology optimization as a design platform for high-performance, freeform metasurfaces. Two types of topology optimizers are covered-local gradient-based optimizers that leverage the adjoint variables method, and global population-based optimizers that reframe the optimization process as the training of a generative neural network; pg. 201, col 1, para 2- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three- dimensional (3D) shapes nanoscale 3D printing).
Regarding claim 6, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1, but fails to disclose wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial includes light- cured resin having varying cross-linking densities, and the three-dimensional metamaterial includes filaments characterized by high dielectric constants of at least 15. However, Truby, drawn to 3D printing, discloses the three-dimensional metamaterial includes light- cured resin having varying cross-linking densities (pg. 373, col 2, para 6-Inkjet printing enables voxel-by-voxel patterning of multiple materials, using a full-colour palette and photopolymer resins whose backbone composition, side-group chemistry and crosslink density can be systematically varied to produce regions with different mechanical properties; pg. 375, col 1. para 3- Materials of this sort include structural metamaterials;), and the three-dimensional metamaterial includes filaments (Fig. 1 caption- Light- and ink-based photocurable inkjet printing of photopolymerizable resins. d, Ink-based fused deposition modelling of thermoplastic filaments.). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the light-cured resin disclosed by Truby to the metamaterial disclosed by Fan to improve the controlling of the fabrication (See Truby, abstract) and provide the filament characterized by high dielectric constants of at least 15, for when the general conditions of a claim are disclosed by the prior art it is not inventive to discover an optimum or workable range by routine experimentation (See Truby, abstract- tunable mechanical, electrical and other functional properties; pg. 373, col 2, para 6- photopolymer resins whose backbone composition, side-group chemistry and crosslink density can be systematically varied to produce regions with different mechanical properties).
Regarding claim 12, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial includes materials additively arranged to approximate a grayscale continuum of dielectric constants (Fig. 1; pg. 197, col 1, para 2- The device comprises a set of subwavelength-scale voxels pushing the grayscale values of (dielectric constant) (ri) toward the discrete dielectric values of silicon or air for all voxels; pg. 201, col 1, para 2- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shape It is anticipated that continued advances in nanoscale manufacturing, including those in nanoscale 3D printing. will enable the translation of these concepts to experimental practice.), but fails to disclose the three-dimensional metamaterial includes multiple filament materials. However, Truby, drawn to 3D printing, discloses the three-dimensional metamaterial includes multiple filament materials (pg. 374, col 1, para 1- printing multiple filament arrays in a single pass. Microfluidic switching nozzles can swap between two different inks when required; pg. 375, col 1, para 3- Materials of this sort include structural metamaterials). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the multiple filament materials disclosed by Truby to the metamaterial disclosed by Fan to improve the controlling of the fabrication (See Truby, abstract).
Regarding claim 13, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial includes materials are to approximate a grayscale continuum of dielectric constants, and wherein the materials are arranged in multiple thin-film layers with the multiple thin-film layers having a first type of layer characterized by a first type of material and having a second type of layer characterized by a second type of material (Fig. 1; pg. 197, col 1, para 2- The device comprises a set of subwavelength-scale voxels pushing the grayscale values of (dielectric constant) (ri) toward the discrete dielectric values of silicon or air for all voxels; pg. 201, col 1, para 2- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shape It is anticipated that continued advances in nanoscale manufacturing, including those in nanoscale 3D printing Theoretical analyses of multilayer metamaterials demonstrate the great potential of multilayer metamaterials to serve as high-efficiency, aberration-corrected elements will enable the translation of these concepts to experimental practice.), but fails to disclose the three-dimensional metamaterial includes multiple filament materials. However, Truby, drawn to 3D printing, discloses the three-dimensional metamaterial includes multiple filament materials (pg. 374, col 1, para 1- printing multiple filament arrays in a single pass. Microfluidic switching nozzles can swap between two different inks when required; pg. 375, col 1, para 3- Materials of this sort include structural metamaterials). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the multiple filament materials disclosed by Truby to the metamaterial disclosed by Fan to improve the controlling of the fabrication (See Truby, abstract).
Regarding claim 20, Fan discloses the method of claim 18. Fan further discloses wherein providing a three-dimensional metamaterial corresponding to the certain electromagnetic response includes using an additive process in which materials having dielectric constants within one or more selected ranges, are accumulated to form the three-dimensional metamaterial (Fig. 1; pg. 197, col 1, para 2- The device comprises a set of subwavelength-scale voxels pushing the grayscale values of (dielectric constant) (ri) toward the discrete dielectric values of silicon or air for all voxels; pg. 201, col 1, para 2- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shape It is anticipated that continued advances in nanoscale manufacturing, including those in nanoscale 3D printing will enable the translation of these concepts to experimental practice.), but fails to disclose sets of multiple filaments. However, Truby, drawn to 3D printing, discloses sets of multiple filaments (pg. 374, col 1, para 1- printing multiple filament arrays in a single pass. Microfluidic switching nozzles can swap between two different inks when required; pg. 375, col 1, para 3- Materials of this sort include structural metamaterials). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the multiple filaments disclosed by Truby to the metamaterial disclosed by Fan to improve the controlling of the fabrication (See Truby, abstract).
Regarding claim 7, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1, but fails to disclose wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial Includes light- cured resin doped, to boost dielectric constant properties, with ceramic nanoparticles. However, Malas, drawn to 3D printing, discloses light-cured resin doped, to boost dielectric constant properties, with ceramic nanoparticles (abstract- The precursor is composed of a commercial visible light photo-reactive polymer (VIS-curable photopolymer) and dispersed titanium dioxide (TiO2, TO) ceramic nano- powder or calcium copper titanate (CCT) micro-powder. TO/resin). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the resin disclosed by Malas to the metamaterial disclosed by Fan to increase the dielectric constant of the material (See Malas, abstract).
Regarding claim 8, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses including an electromagnetic antenna array arranged in a curved shape, wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial is to conform to the curved shape (pg. 201, coll 1, para 2-3- the inverse design of metasurfaces is the extension of device layouts to fully three-dimensional (3D) shapes, which can access more design degrees of freedom augment the optimization of freeform nanophotonic devices), but fails to disclose act as a multifunctional lens to project antenna radiation from elements of the antenna array into respective different angles of field of view. however, Lam, drawn to metamaterials, discloses act as a multifunctional lens to project antenna radiation from elements of the antenna array into respective different angles of field of view (Fig. 2; para [0011]- method is present for creating a negative index metamaterial lens for use with a phased array antenna; para [0055]- the steering of beam 202 prior to entering negative index metamaterial lens 206. The path indicated by arrows 212 and 214; para [0142]-display 2600 illustrates beam 2602 being bent by a lens when projected by an array at around point 2604). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the lens disclosed by Lam to the metamaterial disclosed by Fan to broaden the application of the metamaterial (See Lam, para [0011]).
Regarding claim 10, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses operate based on dielectric resonance modes (pg. 196, col 1, para 2-col 2, para 1- metallic 14 and dielectric 15 structures based on plasmonic and Mie resonances, respectively) but fails to disclose wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial is part of a filter or multiplexer circuit and/or to support disparate (or arbitrary) frequency-multiplexed functions. However, Pennsylvania, drawn to three-dimensional metamaterial, discloses the three-dimensional metamaterial is part of a filter (para [0045]- The microstructured elastomeric substrate provides a platform to accommodate metasurfaces with various functionalities such as filters). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the filter disclosed by Pennsylvania to the metamaterial disclosed by Fan to broaden the application of the metamaterial (See Pennsylvania, para [0045]).
Regarding claim 14, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1, Fan further discloses wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial includes a shaped thin-film dielectric grayscale metamaterial over certain portions of a structure, and the shaped thin-film dielectric grayscale metamaterial is to affect spatial and polarization control provided by the structure (abstract- Metasurfaces are thin-film electromagnetic devices with subwavelength-scale geometric structuring. They can be tailored to produce a broad range of optical functions due to the strong relationship between electromagnetic response and geometric shape; pg. 196, col 1, para 2- Other groups have since studied meta- atoms in the form of geometric phase elements, anisotropic structures capable of polarization control; pg. 201, col 1, para 1- the ability for topology optimization to handle small voxel dimensions allows for high order optical modes within and near-field coupling between subwavelength-scale structures to be tailored with high spatial resolution), but fails to disclose antenna. However, Pennsylvania, drawn to three-dimensional metamaterial, discloses antenna (para [0133]-a user can utilize the component as an adjustable grating, a filter, an antenna, and the like). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the filter disclosed by Pennsylvania to the metarnaterial disclosed by Fan to broaden the application of the metamaterial (See Pennsylvania, para [0133]).
Regarding claim 16, Fan discloses the apparatus of claim 1. Fan further discloses wherein the three-dimensional metamaterial is to conform to a surface, which is nonlinearly or irregularly-shaped, of substrate material (abstract- topology optimization as a design platform for high-performance, freeform metasurfaces; pg. 200, col 1, para 2-A schematic of a GLOnet for metagratings. and outputs devices X as a 1 x 256 dimensional vector. This nonlinear mapping) ,but fails to disclose to cloak at least a portion of the surface and render said at least a portion of the surface as appearing invisible. However, Negev, drawn to metamaterials, discloses to cloak at least a portion of the surface and render said at least a portion of the surface as appearing invisible (para [0011]- radiating the bottom surface of the metamaterial plate by a primary radiation thereby to form a space of invisibility above the top surface of the metamaterial plate). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the invisibility disclosed by Negev to the metamaterial disclosed by Fan to broaden the application of the metamaterial (See Negev, para [0011]).
Conclusion
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/GRAHAM P SMITH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2845
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