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 .
Election
Applicant’s election without traverse of group I (claims 1-7, 9-11, and 16-19) in the reply filed on 4/27/2026 is acknowledged. Claims 8, 12-15, and 20-28 are withdrawn from consideration as drawn to unelected groups.
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.
Claims 10-11 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 10 is indefinite because line 2 recites "the core" but does not identify which one of the plurality of cores from parent claim 9 is being further limited. It appears that "the core" should be replaced with "each core" in line 2.
Claim 10 is further indefinite because there is insufficient antecedent basis for "the other end side" in lines 3-4. It appears that "the other" should be replaced with "another".
Claim 11 is indefinite because line 2 recites "the core" but does not identify which one of the plurality of cores from parent claim 9 is being further limited. It appears that "core is" should be replaced with "cores are" in line 2.
Claim 16 is indefinite because it recites that the core could be constituted by an oxide crystal. However this conflicts with parent claim 7 which expressly sets forth that the core is constituted by a halide crystal. It appears that claim 16 should be canceled.
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, 6-7, and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by CN 111913208 A (already of record via information disclosure statement).
Claim 1: '208 discloses a method for manufacturing an optical fiber emitter, the method comprising:
accommodating a core material constituted by a halide ([0043]; [0051] mentions BaCl2:Eu, SrI2:Eu, and CsF as options; SrI2:Eu and BaCl2:Eu are used in the practical examples of [0090] and [0098] respectively) in a cylindrical container ("glass cladding" of [0045]; "tube" of [0089] or [0097]) constituted by a thermoplastic cladding material (glass such as K9 glass of [0089] or borosilicate glass of [0097]), the halide having a melting point lower than that of the cladding material ([0045], [0054], etc.); and
forming an optical fiber light emitter comprising a core constituted by a crystal of the halide, and a cladding constituted by the cladding material, by heating the container accommodating the core material and stretching the container ([0045]-[0046], [0092], [0100]), the crystal of the halide configured to emit light by being irradiated with radiation.
Claim 6: '208 discloses a method for manufacturing an optical fiber emitter, the method comprising:
accommodating in a cylindrical cladding a core material constituted by a halide having a melting point lower than that of a material constituting the cladding;
melting the core material accommodated in the cladding; and
forming an optical fiber light emitter whose core is made of a crystal of the halide by cooling and solidifying the molten core material to form the crystal of the halide, the crystal of the halide configured to emit light by being irradiated with radiation. See above with regard to claim 1.
Claim 7: A fiber produced by the process described above with regard to claim 1 constitutes an optical fiber emitter comprising:
a core constituted by a halide crystal that emits light; and
a cladding surrounding the core, the cladding constituted by a thermoplastic material.
Claim 16: The core is constituted by an oxide crystal or a halide crystal that emits light by being irradiated with radiation (a halide crystal as mentioned above).
Claim 17: '208 discloses a radiation measuring device comprising the optical fiber emitter according to claim 7. See e.g. the "scintillation fiber device" of [0093] or [0101], which was used to measure radiation in [0094] or [0102].
Claims 2-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 5640017.
Claim 2: '017 discloses a method for manufacturing an optical fiber emitter, the method comprising:
preparing a cylindrical cladding ("tube having a high melting point, e.g. of silica", col. 7 lns. 31-32; "silica tube", col. 7 ln. 36);
forming a melt by melting a halide ("molten scintillating material", col. 7 ln. 33; NaI(Tl) and CsI are halides, col. 7 ln. 38; note also CsF, CaF2, and LiI in col. 4 lns.50-55) having a melting point lower than that of a material (silica as mentioned above) constituting the cladding;
accommodating the melt in the cladding (the tube defining the cladding is immersed in a bath of the molten scintillating material, col. 7 lns. 31-33); and
forming an optical fiber emitter whose core is made of a crystal of the halide by cooling and solidifying the melt accommodated in the cladding to form the crystal of the halide ("The latter is then crystallized, which leads to a detecting element", col. 7 lns. 34-35), the crystal of the halide configured to emit light by being irradiated with radiation.
Claim 3: Accommodating the melt in the cladding includes sucking up the melt into the inside of the cladding ("drawing", col. 7 ln. 51).
Claim 4: Accommodating the melt in the cladding includes pushing up the melt into the inside of the cladding ("pressure", col. 7 ln. 51).
Claims 7, 9-10, and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by CN 113156577 A.
Claim 7: '577 discloses an optical fiber emitter comprising (see mainly fig. 4):
a core 2 constituted by a halide crystal that emits light ([n0051], barium fluoride is a halide); and
a cladding 3 surrounding the core, the cladding constituted by a thermoplastic material ("fluorine-doped quartz glass tube").
Claim 9: The optical fiber emitter is formed of a multi-core fiber having a plurality of the cores (five cores in the example of fig. 4) in the same fiber body.
Claim 10: Diameter of each [[the]] core, thickness of the cladding, and the outer diameter of the cladding get smaller as approaching from one end side to [[the]] another end side (i.e. from an undrawn end which is part of the preform at maximum diameter, to a fully drawn end at final diameter).
Claim 16: The core is constituted by an oxide crystal or a halide crystal that emits light by being irradiated with radiation (BaF2 crystal, [n0051]).
Claim 17: '577 discloses a radiation measuring device comprising the optical fiber emitter according to claim 7 ([n0057]).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 5640017 (applied above).
'017 does not disclose that preparing the cylindrical cladding includes providing a cladding array in which a plurality of claddings are bundled, and accommodating the melt in the cladding includes accommodating the melt in each of the plurality of claddings of the cladding array. However, the notion of mass production was known before the instant application was filed. A person of ordinary skill in the art could have extended the '017 method by immersing a plurality of the silica tubes into the molten scintillator material in order to fill them simultaneously, with predictable results. Thus it would have been obvious to such a person before the effective filing date of claim 5 to do so, motivated by an interest in improving efficiency compared to immersing one silica tube at a time.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11 and 18-19 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 claim 7 and all applicable intervening claims (and for claim 11, if the rewriting avoids the indefiniteness issue mentioned above). The applied references do not disclose or suggest rectangular cores arranged in a rectangular manner as required by claim 11, or a bundle of light emitters as required by claim 18, in combination with all the limitations of claim 7.
Conclusion
The additional references listed on the attached 892 form disclose other examples of scintillating and/or halide containing fibers.
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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