Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Objections
Claims 1-30 are objected to for the following informalities:
Claim 1 is objected to because line 21 recites "liquid host" instead of "fluid host".
Claims 3 and 17 are objected to because they are missing a comma between "titanium" and "chromium" in line 3.
Claims 3 and 17 are also objected to because line 4 recites "and" instead of "or".
Claims 7 and 22 are objected to because they are missing "or" at the end of line 4 (first line of clause b); that is, "or" should be inserted between "circular," and "triangular".
Claim 13 is objected to because it is missing a phrase such as "the process comprising" at the start of line 21. Alternatively, a step term such as "providing" could be inserted after each of "a)", "b)", and "c)". It is noted that lines 2-20 as presently written merely recite what the optofluidic device comprises. Since claim 13 is a process claim, the process step(s) should be clearly delineated.
Claim 19 is objected to because line 2 recites "has" instead of "having".
Claim 28 is objected to because it is missing "or" between "equal to" and "lower than".
Claims 2-12 and 14-30 are technically objected to by dependence from claims 1 or 13.
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 3-4 and 17-18 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.
Claims 3 and 17 are indefinite because they recite the term "preferably", which makes the scope of those claims unclear (see MPEP 2173.05(d)). Preferred metal materials may be set forth in claims which depend from claims 3 or 17.
Claims 4 and 18 are indefinite by dependence from claims 3 or 17.
Claim 4 is further indefinite because it appears to contain the text of two separate claims. The portion which reads "The optofluidic device of Claim 1 wherein said at least one fluid cavity has at least one fluid inlet and at least one fluid outlet." should be removed from claim 4 and presented as a new claim.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-30 would be allowable if they are suitably amended to overcome the pertinent objections and indefiniteness rejections above. US 2023/0131116 A1 is regarded as the closest prior art of record. '116 discloses many of the elements of claims 1 and 13 for example in [0018]-[0023], [0039]-[0044], and fig. 2. It is noted that the "film" of '116 at [0020] and [0041] corresponds to the "pattern material" of claims 1 and 13. However '116 does not disclose or suggest disposing an additional film on one of the patterns, as recited at claim 1 line 12 and claim 13 line 11, in combination with all the other limitations.
Conclusion
The additional references listed on the attached 892 form are considered generally relevant to the subject matter of this application. Several of them disclose coupling between optical waveguides in a liquid environment.
Contact Information
Examiner: 571-272-2360
Examiner's direct supervisor: 571-272-2397
Official correspondence by fax: 571-273-8300
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from Patent Center. Should you have questions about Patent Center, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/Michael Stahl/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2874
Prosecution Insights