DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of group 1, claims 1-14 in the reply filed on 5/21/2026 is acknowledged.
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 .
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.
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.
Claims 1-3, 7-10 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2022/0149937 (Magri).
For claim 1, Magri teaches a system for characterization of laser transmitter thermal properties comprising:
at least one processor (fig. 1, 32 and 34); and
memory comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations to: collect a set of bias current-temperature pairs for a laser diode ([0086]);
calculate a bias current-temperature curve for the laser diode using the set of bias current-temperature pairs (fig. 7, 142; [0181]).
Magri does not explicitly state a timestamp assigned to the bias current-temperature curve. However, Margi does teach using data from a particular time window in order to capture recent behavior. ([0161]). Further, the examiner takes official notice that time stamps were well-known in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention in order to show when an event took place. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the well-known timestamp with the system of Margi in order to show when data was collected and allow for use of data from a particular time window in order to capture recent behavior.
Magri further teaches storing operational date such as the bias current-temperature curve and the timestamp in a non-volatile memory device communicatively coupled to a laser device that includes the laser diode; and transmit the bias current-temperature curve and the timestamp to a cloud-based storage facility ([0082]).
For claim 8, Magri is applied according to the rejection of claim 1 above. While Magri does not explicitly state the instructions for characterization are on at least one-non-transitory machine readable medium, the examiner takes official notice that it was well-known in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to store instructions for a processor such as Magri’s on at least one-non-transitory machine readable medium. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to store the instructions for Magri’s processor on at least one-non-transitory machine readable as was well-known in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
For claim 2 and 9, Magri further teaches instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations to: adjust an environmental temperature of the laser diode from a lowest operating temperature to a highest operating temperature during manufacturing testing of the laser diode, wherein the set of bias current-temperature pairs comprise bias current-temperature pairs collected at a variety of temperatures from the lowest operating temperature to the highest operating temperature ([0179], 22º-80º).
For claim 3 and 10, Magri further teaches the set of bias current-temperature pairs are collected at a variety of environmental temperatures experienced by the laser diode during operation ([0086] and [0179]).
For claim 7 and 14, the limitation “wherein the laser diode transmits and receives optical data signals in a passive optical network” recites an intended use of the laser diode characterized by the system/instruction on the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claims 4 and 14 rather than a limitation of the system and non-transitory medium. Therefore, it does not distinguish the claimed invention from the prior art.
Further, the examiner takes official notice that using laser transceivers in passive optical networks (PONs) in order to transmit data was well-known in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the laser of Magri with the well-known PONs in order to transmit data.
Claims 6 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2022/0149937 (Magri) in view of US 2019/0089110 (Movassaghi).
For claim 6 and 13, Magri teaches instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations to:
collect a current bias current-temperature pair for the laser diode ([0086]);
transmit the current bias current-temperature pair to the cloud-based storage facility ([0082]).
Magri does not teach receiving an age value for the laser diode based on the current bias current-temperature pair; and storing the age value in the non-volatile memory device communicatively coupled to a laser device.
However, Movassaghi teaches receiving an age value for the laser diode based on the current bias current-temperature pair in order to compare the actual age to an expected age and warn a user. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to obtain a age value in Magri as taught by Movassaghi in order to compare the actual age to an expected age and warn a user.
While the combination does not explicitly teach storing the age value in the non-volatile memory device communicatively coupled to a laser device, the examiner takes official notice that storing data in non-volatile memory was well-known in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention and had the known advantage of allowing data to be referenced at a later time. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to store the age value in non-volatile memory of the combination in order to allow the age data to be referenced at a later time.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-5 and 11-12 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael W Carter whose telephone number is (571)270-1872. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9:00-5:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, MinSun Harvey can be reached at 571-272-1835. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Michael Carter/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2828
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