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
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of the embodiment of Fig 5 (claims 8-13, 16, 17) in the reply filed on 6/26/2026 is acknowledged. Applicant has canceled non-elected claims.
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 8-13, 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, regards as the invention.
1) Claims 8-11 recite limitations "laser beam", "combined laser beam", "beam properties", and “combined beam properties”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for the limitation "beam properties" in the claims. The claims use these terms interchangeably, creating a confusion. Since there is a plurality of laser beams produced by the plurality of diode lasers and a combined laser beam produced by the optics assembly, it is not clear if the "beam properties" referring to the plurality of individual beams or to the combined beam.
2) The term “high power” in claim 8 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “high” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
3) The term “high brightness” in claim 8 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “high” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
4) The term “high-quality” in claim 8 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “high” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
5) The term “long periods of time” in claim 8 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “long” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
6) The term “substantial degradation” in claim 8 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “substantial” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
7) Regarding claims 8-10, the phrases "at least about" and “less than about” render the claims indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitation(s) following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d).
8) The term “about” in claims 8-10 is a relative term which renders the claims indefinite. The term “about” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
9) Claims 9 and 10 recite a limitation “the propagation surface”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims. Claim 8 already recites “a housing propagation surface” and claim 12 recites “the propagation surface of the facets”.
10) Claim 12 recites a limitation “the propagation surface of the facets.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 8 recites limitations "a plurality of facets" and “a housing propagation surface”. Since the propagation surface is defined as a window or a fiber face, it is not clear if the plurality of laser diode facets could have a propagation surface at all.
11) Claims 16 and 17 recite limitation “the sources of … contaminates is selected from …”. This is grammatically incorrect and should be amended to recite “the source of … contaminates is selected from …”.
The remainder of the claims are rejected for their dependence on claim 8. For the purpose of examination, the limitations as presented have been searched and considered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The applicant is reminded of the 37 CFR 1.56 Duty to disclose information material to patentability:
(a) A patent by its very nature is affected with a public interest. The public interest is best served, and the most effective patent examination occurs when, at the time an application is being examined, the Office is aware of and evaluates the teachings of all information material to patentability. Each individual associated with the filing and prosecution of a patent application has a duty of candor and good faith in dealing with the Office, which includes a duty to disclose to the Office all information known to that individual to be material to patentability as defined in this section. The duty to disclose information exists with respect to each pending claim until the claim is cancelled or withdrawn from consideration, or the application becomes abandoned. Information material to the patentability of a claim that is cancelled or withdrawn from consideration need not be submitted if the information is not material to the patentability of any claim remaining under consideration in the application. There is no duty to submit information which is not material to the patentability of any existing claim. The duty to disclose all information known to be material to patentability is deemed to be satisfied if all information known to be material to patentability of any claim issued in a patent was cited by the Office or submitted to the Office in the manner prescribed by §§ 1.97(b)-(d) and 1.98. However, no patent will be granted on an application in connection with which fraud on the Office was practiced or attempted or the duty of disclosure was violated through bad faith or intentional misconduct.
The Office encourages applicants to carefully examine:
(1) Prior art cited in search reports of a foreign patent office in a counterpart application or of related US applications, and
(2) The closest information over which individuals associated with the filing or prosecution of a patent application believe any pending claim patentably defines, to make sure that any material information contained therein is disclosed to the Office.
Pertinent Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Applicant’s attention is drawn to the references cited on form PTO-892 which lists other references with similar features as the invention.
Contact Info
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to M. A. GOLUB-MILLER whose telephone number is (571)272-8602. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9-5.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, MinSun Harvey can be reached on (571) 272-1835. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. For more information about the PAIR system, see https://ppair-my.uspto.gov/pair/PrivatePair. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/M. A. Golub-Miller/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2828
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