DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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) 1-4, 7-9, 12, 13-14, 15-17, and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the US patent application publication by Visser et al (US 2007/012005 A1) in view of the US patent application publication by Some (US 2003/0227618 A1).
Visser et al teaches, with regard to claims 1 and 13, an illumination system serves as the system that is comprised of a plurality of sub-beams that may include three or more that propagate, via a coherence removal (400, 600 or 700), along optical paths with different optical path lengths, (please see Figures 8, 10 and 11), a diffractive optical element (603 or 703) configured to diffract the three or more sub-beams into a plurality of diffracted sub-beams and one or more optical elements (604 or 704) configured to collect the plurality of diffracted sub-beams. The illumination system homogenizes the plurality of the diffracted sub-beams to a provide flat-top beam, (homogenize is known in the art to include flat-top intensity profile).
This reference has met all the limitations of the claims. Visser et al teaches the incident light includes a plurality of sub-beams, it however does not teach explicitly to include a beamsplitting apparatus including one or more beamsplitters to split an input beam into the three or more sub-beams. Some in the same field of endeavor teaches a laser scanning system that is comprised of a laser light source (16, Figure 5) for generating an incident light beam (12) that is split by a plurality of beamsplitters (86, 88 and 90, Figure 5) to provide three sub-beams (92, 94 and 96) that each further pass through a fiber (102, 104 or 106) respective to provide different optical path lengths for each of sub-beams to reduce mutual interference among the sub-beams. It would then have been obvious to one skilled in the art to apply the teachings of Some et al to provide beamsplitting apparatus including more than one beamsplitters to split the incident light beam into the plurality of sub-beams for the benefit of using art well-known beamsplitter arrangement or apparatus to provide the plurality of sub-beams from the incident light beam.
With regard to claim 15, Visser et al teaches the system implicitly includes the method including a step of providing three or more sub-beams that propagate along optical paths, via a coherence removal (400, 600 or 700, Figures 8, 10 and 11), with different optical path lengths, a step of diffracting the three or more sub-beams into a plurality of diffracted sub-beams with a diffractive optical element (603 or 703), and the step of collecting the plurality of diffracted sub-beams with one or more optical elements (604 or 704) to provide a homogenized or flat top beam. In light of Some, the plurality of sub-beams may be generated by splitting an input beam (12, Figure 5) into a plurality of sub-beams (92, 94 and 96) via beamsplitting apparatus includes more than one beam splitters (86, 88 and 90).
With regard to claims 2 and 16, it is implicitly true that the flat-top beam or homogenized beam is spatially uniform within a selected tolerance.
With regard to claims 3, 14 and 17, both Visser et al and Some teach that the light source comprises a laser light source that generates the incident light with a temporally coherence. Both Visser et al and Some further teaches that the sub-beams pass through the coherence removal (400, 600 or 700 of Visser et al and the fibers of Some (102, 104 or 106) to make the sub-beams with different optical path lengths. The diffracted sub-beams taught by Visser et al therefore also have different optical path lengths. The intensity of the flat-top beam is resulted by summing the intensities of the incoherent diffracted sub-beams.
With regard to claim 4, Visser et al teaches that the diffracted sub-beams partially overlap in the flat-top beam, (please see paragraph [0102]).
With regard to claims 7 and 20, Visser et al to provide coherence removal (400, 600 or 700, Figures 8, 10 and 11) serve as the one or more delays to provide the different optical path lengths of the three sub-beams. Some also teach to provide a plurality of optical fibers (102, 104 and 106, Figure 5) serves as the optical delays to provide different optical path lengths for the three sub-beams. With regard to claim 20, the method comprises the step of delaying at least one or more sub-beams with one or more optical delays to provide different optical path lengths of the three or more sub-beams.
With regard to claim 8, Some teaches the optical delays comprises a plurality of optical fibers (102, 104 and 106, Figure 5).
With regard to claims 9 and 19, Some teaches that the one or more beamsplitters comprise two or more beamsplitters, (please see 86, 88 and 90, Figure 5).
With regard to claim 12, Some teaches that the beamsplitters are non-polarizing beamsplitters.
Claim(s) 5, 6, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Visser et al and Some as applied to claims 1 and 15 above, and further in view of the US patent application publication by Amako (US 2006/0054606 A1).
The illumination system taught by Visser et al in combination with the teachings of Some as described in claims 1 and 15 above has met all the limitations of the claims.
With regard to claims 5, 6 and 18, Visser et al teaches to include diffractive optical element (701, Figure 11) that may separately direct the sub-beams, (please see [0102]). It however does not teach explicitly that the beamsplitting apparatus comprises additional diffractive optical element to split the input beam. However diffractive optical element via the implicitly diffraction function is capable of splitting incident light into spatially separated sub-breams. Such is explicitly demonstrated by the disclosure of Amako, wherein as shown in Figure 7, a diffractive beamsplitter (14, please see paragraph [0062]) is used to split the incident beam into three sub-beams. It would then have been obvious to apply the teachings of Amako to alternatively use a diffractive beam splitter to split the incident beam into the plurality of sub-beams. With regard to claim 6, Visser et al teaches a lens (602 or 702, Figures 10 and 11) may be provided between beam splitter and the diffractive optical element (603 or 703).
Claim(s) 10 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Visser et al and Some as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of the US patent application publication by Tilleman et al (US 2011/0164221 A1).
The illumination system taught by Visser et al in combination with the teachings of Some as described in claim 1 above has met all the limitations of the claims.
With regard to claims 10 and 11, Visser et al and Some do not teach explicitly that the one or more beamsplitters comprise polarizing beamsplitter. Tilleman et al in the same field of endeavor teaches a system wherein a polarizing beamsplitter (110, Figure 1), serves as the beamsplitting apparatus, and a quarter wave plate (116, serves as the polarization rotator) is utilized to split the incident light beam into a plurality of sub-beams each with a desired polarization state. It would then have been obvious to apply the teachings of Tilleman et al to modify the beamsplitting apparatus to alternatively comprise polarizing beamsplitter and polarization rotator for the benefit of providing a plurality of sub-beams with adjusted or desired polarization state.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AUDREY Y CHANG whose telephone number is (571)272-2309. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 9:00AM-4:30PM.
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AUDREY Y. CHANG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2872
/AUDREY Y CHANG/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2872
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