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, 7-8, and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Luo et al. (article in Optics Letters, February 2018, citation "U" on the 892 form included with the 8/22/2025 action).
Claim 1: Luo et al. discloses a semiconductor structure, comprising (see mainly figs. 1 and 5-7):
a substrate ("Sub" in fig. 1(b), "Glass substrate" in fig. 5);
a metal layer ("Metal mirror" or "Au");
a dielectric layer ("BCB") disposed over the metal layer; and
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magnified copy of fig. 1 from Luo et al.
a semiconductor layer ("Si", nominally 220 nm thick in fig. 1(b)) disposed over the dielectric layer, the metal layer extending across the semiconductor layer, the semiconductor layer including:
a two-dimensional grating coupler ("2D GC" in fig. 1(b), array of red circles in fig. 1(a), inset in fig. 6(a)) including a plurality of scattering elements disposed in the semiconductor layer; and
a pair of tapered structures extending laterally from the two-dimensional grating coupler (fig. 1(a), fig. 3(b));
wherein the metal layer extends over an entirety of a region over which the two-dimensional grating coupler and the pair of tapered structures are disposed. In particular there is a rectangular region of the substrate over which the entirety of the metal layer extends in fig. 1(a). As illustrated the two-dimensional grating coupler and portions of the tapered structures overlap the metal layer, and therefore the rectangular region of the substrate mentioned above constitutes "a region over which the two-dimensional grating coupler and the pair of tapered structures are disposed". It appears that claim 1 could be distinguished over Luo et al. by inserting "entireties of" after "over which" in line 11.
Claim 7: A top surface of each scattering element is configured with a polygon shape having at least four sides. In particular the 2D GC region can be viewed as an array of rectangles with truncated corners (see an individual scattering element shape below) instead of an array of circular holes.
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Claim 8: The at least four sides each include a straight portion and an elliptical portion (the shape above has four sets of a straight portion connected to a quarter-circle portion).
Claim 10: The semiconductor layer further includes a pair of waveguides each extending laterally from a corresponding tapered structure (fig. 7(a); each waveguide is a "500 nm wide waveguide" connected to the grating by a taper as mentioned in the left column on p. 477).
Response to Arguments
All rejections and informality objections of the 8/22/2025 action were overcome by the 11/24/2025 response.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-16, 21, and 23-25 are allowed. Claims 2-6 and 9 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 1 and all applicable intervening claims. The applied Luo et al. reference does not disclose or suggest that the scattering elements are arranged in an apodized pattern as required by dependent claim 2 and independent claim 11; that adjacent scattering elements are configured with different height as required by dependent claim 9; or that the two-dimensional grating coupler includes two single-polarization grating couplers each including a set of curved grating lines as required by independent claim 21.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contact Information
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/Michael Stahl/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2874