Non-Final Rejection
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . The application was filed with claims 1-20. On 3/11/2026 the examiner made an election of species requirement, and on 4/10/2026 applicant elected species 1, drawn to Fig. 2, without traverse. Applicant asserted that claims 1, 2, and 5-10 read on the elected species, and the examiner agrees. Claims 3 and 4 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected species, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Claims 11-20 were also drawn to non-elected species, but in light of the search including similar features and in light of no art being found, the restriction requirement is withdrawn to the extent it applied to claims 11-20. Claims 11-20 are under examination herein.
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 1-2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2019-46973 (“JP ‘973”).
Regarding claim 1, JP ‘973 discloses in Fig. 3 and the discussion thereof starting at [0028] a system for altering duration of a laser pulse (there is dispersion compensation, so the pulse duration is altered), comprising:
a chirped fiber Bragg grating 205-1 for stretching or compressing the laser pulse (again, by compensating for dispersion it will necessarily do one of these. Additionally, it is deemed inherent that a CFBG is capable of performing this functional language); . . . and a retroreflector 205-2. As explained in [0028]-[0035], the laser pulse is directed to the CFBG 205-1, then is directed to retroreflector 205-2, then back to the CFBG again, then down to the circulator 202 where it is output.
This is substantially the same operation as claimed, except the claim does it in a different way. The claim uses a Faraday rotator and fiber-optic polarization combiner, so that the polarization is changed on various pass throughs and goes to the separate ways based on that changed polarization. JP ‘973 uses a quarter wave plate and polarizing beam splitter but likewise changes the polarization in various pass throughs and uses that to direct the beam the separate ways based on that changed polarization. It is readily apparent that these are doing the same thing. Applicant did not invent Faraday rotators and polarization combiners, these things were known in the art, and to the extent necessary the examiner takes Official Notice of that fact. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use the known claimed items in place of the JP ‘973 elements as a simple substitution of known elements for another to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143 I.B. JP ‘973 does not show these elements, but they are known in the art. The result of substituting the claimed elements would have been predictable because, as described above, the claimed and JP ‘973 elements ultimately do the same thing—allow some beams to pass and direct other beams to other places, depending on polarization of the beam. Again the JP ‘973 path is essentially the same as that claimed, going from input to CFBG to reflector back to CFBG to output.
Furthermore, JP ‘973 operates in free space rather than completely fiber based as the claimed elements do. Sometimes free space has advantages, sometimes fiber. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use fiber based solutions because they are generally more stable as they are not as subject to external interference such as from weather or the environment, or items blocking the line of sight. This is further reason to make the obvious substitution.
Regarding claim 2, JP ‘973 Fig. 3 shows a fiber-optic circulator having first, second, and third circulator ports and configured to (a) emit, from the second circulator port (up towards the rest of the elements), laser radiation coupled into the first circulator port (from 201), and (b) emit, from the third circulator port (right, towards output), laser radiation coupled into the second circulator port, wherein the second circulator port is fiber-coupled to the first combiner port.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP ‘973 in view of Noda et al., Polarization-Maintaining Fibers and Their Applications, J. of Lightwave Technology, vol. 4 no. 8 (1986) (“Noda”).
Regarding claim 5, as above re: claim 1 it would have been obvious to couple everything via fibers, but it is not disclosed that PM fiber is used. Noda teaches that PM fiber is known in the art, and it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use it because, as the name says, it preserves the polarization state of light in the fiber. JP ‘973 clearly considers the polarization important and the various parts of the system rely on it not changing, so a person skilled in the art would immediately recognize that it would be useful that it does not change except when specifically intended to, as may occur in normal fibers.
Claims 6-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP ‘973 in view of The Nobel Committee for Physics, Groundbreaking Inventions in Laser Physics (2018) (“Nobel”).
The features of these claims are not necessarily shown by JP ‘973. Chirped pulse amplification is well known in the art as shown in Nobel, winning the Nobel prize. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use the laser of JP ‘973 system in a CPA system as it creates very short pulses having high power, as taught by Nobel at 6, and such resulting pulses are useful in numerous applications, Nobel 9-11. In this case It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use the CFBG of JP ‘973 to stretch the pulse (claim 6), use an amplifier to amplify the stretched pulse and create and amplified stretched pulse (claim 7), compress the amplified stretched pulse (claim 9). See Nobel p. 8, Fig. 5. The input comes in on a fiber in JP ‘973 therefore it is natural that it may be a fiber laser (claim 10).
Regarding claim 8, a pulse picker is not shown. The examiner takes Official Notice that such items are well known in the art. Indeed, applicant did not in any way explain what it is, therefore it would not be enabled if it was not well known. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to include a pulse picker as claimed because a user will often want only a certain number of pulses, and would like to extract those and block the others; this is what a pulse picker does. For example, it may be wasteful to amplify pulses that are not going to be used. The input or output of the system, i.e. at the first or third circulator port, would seem to be the most convenient location.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-20 are allowed.
Regarding claim 11, there is not taught or disclosed in the prior art a system for altering duration of a laser pulse, comprising: a CFBG; a fiber-optic polarization combiner having first, second, and third combiner ports, the fiber-optic polarization combiner being configured to optically couple (a) laser radiation of a first polarization between the first and third combiner ports and (b) laser radiation of a second polarization between the second and third combiner ports, the first and second polarizations being mutually orthogonal, the third combiner port being fiber-coupled to the CFBG; and a fiber-optic circulator having first, second, third, and fourth circulator ports and configured to (a) emit, from the second circulator port, laser radiation coupled into the first circulator port, (b) emit, from the third circulator port, laser radiation coupled into the second circulator port, and (c) emit, from the fourth circulator port, laser radiation coupled into the third circulator port; wherein the second circulator port is fiber-coupled to the first combiner port to direct a laser pulse coupled into the first combiner port to a first reflection in the CFBG, and the third circulator port is fiber-coupled to the second combiner port to subsequently direct the laser pulse to a second reflection in the CFBG. In other words, while not limiting, this is essentially the configuration shown in Fig. 5. It is noted that this is essentially the entire claim, but all of these items are known in the art so it is their particular arrangement that is allowable.
Claims 12-20 are dependent on claim 11 and allowed for the same reasons.
Conclusion
Other references with some similarities are cited, but none good enough to meet the claims.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to James Menefee whose telephone number is (571)272-1944. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7-4.
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/JAMES A MENEFEE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2828
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