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 .
Detailed Action
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, species IA (claims 1-11) in response/amendment is acknowledged. The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Information Disclosure Statement
The prior art documents submitted by Applicant(s) in the information Disclosure Statement(s) have all been considered and made of record (note the attached copy of form(s) PTO-1449).
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 5-6 and 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 5 is indefinite for reinstating “where the second 4F optical system comprises a second beam splitter in optical communication with a second booster amplifier photodetector; where the second booster amplifier photodetector is operative to measure signal quality of light received from the amplifier” as it seems to be that this claim should really depend on claim 4 with the first booster amplifier while it depends to claim 1 and lacks antecedent basis and makes the scope of the vague.
Claims 8 and 9, analogous to claim 5, recited “the third splitter” and “fourth splitter”, respectively, lacking antecedent basis, and it appears that claim 8 should depend on claim 5 and claim 9 to depend on claim 8 to overcome such vagueness of claims.
Claim 6 is rejected because of dependency to claim 5.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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.
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 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.
Claims 1-2 and 7 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over “Lukens” et al. US 20170315054 A1.
Regarding claim 1, Lukens teaches a device for transmitting data from a plurality of solid core optical fibers and a hollow core fiber (see figs. 1-10 at least 0034) comprising:
a multiplexer (shown in at least fig. 6; i.e., 604)); where the multiplexer is operative to select between a plurality of inputs received from the plurality of solid core optical fibers and transmits one of these inputs as a light output (see at least fig. 5 which can be used in the system of fig. 1 and parag. 0057);
a first 4F optical system that is operative to receive the light output from the multiplexer (see figs. 1A, the lenses generation focal points for at least two 4-f is at the top of the optical network at least between lenses 148, 152…and coupled to the bottom 4-f system lenses 120, 134/138); where the first 4F operative system comprises a first diverging lens and a first converging lens (see lenses for collimation and then convergence input/output of lenses 110, 148, 152; parag. 0045 same as the applicant); an amplifier (see fig. 5, item fiber 506 can be situated for example in the fiber network of 4-f system of fig. 1A; at least parag. 0057) disposed downstream of the first 4F optical system and upstream of a second 4F optical system (shown in fig. 1A); where the amplifier is operative to amplify light output from the first 4F optical system (see at least parag. 0057); and where the second 4F optical system (the bottom 4-f system in fig. 1A0) is operative to receive amplified light output from the amplifier and output the amplified light to the hollow core fiber in a form that is compatible with the hollow core fiber (see fig. 7, item output fiber 720 and see at least parag. 0034); where the second 4F optical system comprises a second diverging lens and second converging lens (see lenses for collimation and then convergence input/output of lenses 120, 134, 138, parag. 0045 same as the applicant); and where at least one of the first 4F optical system or the second 4F optical system are free-space systems that transmit light unbounded by a waveguide (see at least fig. 1A the first 4-f system unbounded by a waveguide).
However, Lukens does not teach all the limitations of the optical system such as the multiplexer in fig. 1 embodiment, rather such limitation is taught in another related embodiment such as in figs. 4-6. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the embodiment of Fig. 1, of Lukens by incorporating feature(s) of another embodiment such as hollow/solid core fiber(s) or a multiplexer by incorporating to produce a transmitting data system as such modification provides active stabilization, and improved NLI configurations (see background summary).
The statements advanced in rejection of claim 1, above, as to the applicability and disclosure of and the motivation are incorporated herein in rejection of the following claims as follows:
Lukens teaches:
2. The device of Claim 1, where the first 4F optical system and the second 4F optical system are free-space systems (shown in fig. 1).
With regard to claim 7, though Lukens teaches single mode amplifier, however being silent on that it is “an erbium doped” fiber, such fibers are extremely conventional too be used by an ordinary skill in the art, as such fiber efficiently boosts input signals.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4 and 10-11 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.
Citation of Relevant Prior Art
Prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure. In accordance with MPEP 707.05 the following references are pertinent in rejection of this application since they provide substantially the same information disclosure as this patent does. These references are:
US 20220182741 A1
US 20220003540 A1
US 20220229248 A1
US 20210127969 A1
US 9780872 B2
US 20030011769 A1
US 20070287920 A1
US 20170315054 A1
US 20130088771 A1
US 20070239032 A1
US 20060132791 A1
US 20030020922 A1
US 20060255250 A1
US 20080078939 A1
US 20060244973 A1
US 20070232902 A1
US 20070078305 A1
US 20060241493 A1
US 20010007917 A1
US 5115814 A
US 7539362 B2
US 5176140 A
US 6687010 B1
US 5682412 A
WO 03005621 A1
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KAVEH C KIANNI whose telephone number is (571)272-2417. The examiner can normally be reached on 9-19.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas Hollweg can be reached on571-270-1739. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KAVEH C KIANNI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2874