DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Applicant’s election of Invention I (claims 1-6) in the reply filed on 11/19/2025 is acknowledged. Because applicant did not distinctly and specifically point out the supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election has been treated as an election without traverse (MPEP § 818.01(a)). Claims 7-10 are withdrawn from consideration.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the “filter wafer” must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida et al., US 2019/0079280A1, in view of Shiraiwa et al., US 2018/0246258 A1.
Regarding claim 1, Yoshida et al. disclose a method of manufacturing a lens unit 1 (figs 5-13) comprising:
. producing a stacked wafer (S10) including a plurality of optical wafers 10W-59W including at least one optical wafer 10 and a glass wafer ([0029]), the stacked wafer 10W having a first principal surface 10 SA and a second principal surface 10SB (fig 6)
. forming grooves (S12) in a grid pattern on the first principal surface or the second principal surface of the stacked wafer using a dicing blade 90, (figs 6, 8) the grooves having a depth at which the light shielding layer 70W is cut (figs 9-10)
. dividing the stacked wafer into a plurality of lens units 1 (S14) by performing stealth dicing using a filamentation laser along the grooves (fig 11, [0059]).
Yoshida et al., however, do not disclose the light shielding layer constituting an aperture disposed on a glass wafer. Shiraiwa et al. disclose that a stacked lens unit 11 has an aperture stop plate 51 including a light shielding layer ([0180], fig. 9). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to employ the Yoshida et al. optical wafer having a light shielding layer constituting an aperture disposed on the based glass wafer, as shown by Shiraiwa et al. for shielding function purposes, so as to control amount of light entering a lens unit (e.g., shielding unnecessary light that is incident on an optical path in the lens unit).
Re claim 2, the modification to Yoshida et al would result the stacked wafer including a plurality of light shielding layers, and all the plurality of light shielding layers included in the stacked wafer are cut by forming the grooves (Shiraiwa et al., fig 3).
Re claim 3, wherein the stacked wafer includes a filter wafer, and the filter wafer is cut by forming the grooves (Yoshida et al., [0050]).
Re claim 4, the modification to Yoshida et al. would result an adhesive layer made of light shielding resin configured to adhesively bond the plurality of optical wafers together (Yoshida et al., [0028]), and the adhesive layer is cut by forming the grooves (Yoshida et al., fig 8).
Re claim 5, wherein a bottom surface of the grooves is irradiated with the filamentation laser (Yoshida et al., [0059]).
Re claim 6, wherein a length of a side surface of the lens unit formed by stealth dicing is longer than a depth of the grooves formed using the dicing blade (Yoshida et al., fig. 11).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUNG T NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-2297. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 - 5:00.
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/DUNG T NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2871
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