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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The prior art documents submitted by applicant in the Information Disclosure Statement(s) filed on September 13, 2024 and November 25, 2024, have all been considered and made of record (note the attached copy(ies) of form PTO-1449).
Drawings
Thirteen sheets of drawings were filed on October 27, 2023 have been accepted by the examiner.
Inventorship
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.
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 first direction and the third direction are perpendicular to the transmission directions of the first light beams” 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 § 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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 6-7 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Neither the drawings nor the Specification clearly show: both the first direction and the third direction are perpendicular to the transmission direction of the first light beams. For examination purposes, the examiner shall consider the input port array and output port array are along the direction parallel to the transmission direction.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Neilson et al. (US 2013/0216183 A1, herein “Neilson”) in view of Demolder (www.dpreview.com, March 10, 2015).
Regarding claims 1, 6-7, 15, 18 Nelson discloses an optical switching apparatus (Fig. 2A), comprising input ports (2101-2016), a first dispersion member (218a), a first switching engine (224), a first beam combining member (lens 214c collimates and focus beam onto grating, Para [0062]) comprising first beam combining regions, a first lens (214d), a second dispersion member (238a), a second beam combining member (214g), a second switching engine (234), and output ports (2501-250g), wherein
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the input ports (2101-2016) are configured to obtain first light beams (Para [0039]);
the first dispersion member (218a) is configured to receive the first light beams from the input ports, decompose the first light beams into a plurality of first sub-wavelength light beams, and the first dispersion member make the plurality of first sub-wavelength light beams incident on the first switching engine (Fig. 2A, Para [0044]-[0046]);
the first switching engine (224) is configured to change transmission directions of the first sub-wavelength light beams for being incident on a plurality of first beam combining regions comprised in the first beam combining member (Fig. 2A; Para [0045]-[0046], [0049], and [0061]);
the first beam combining regions are configured to perform beam combining on the received first sub-wavelength light beams to form second light beams, and the first beam combining member is configured to make a plurality of second light beams incident on the first lens group (Fig. 2A; Para [0062]);
the first lens (214d) is configured to converge the plurality of second light beams to the second dispersion member (Fig. 2A; Paras [0061], [0064]),
the second dispersion member (238a) is configured to decompose each second light beam into a plurality of second sub-wavelength light beams, and the second dispersion member is configured to make the plurality of second subwavelength light beams incident on the second switching engine (Fig. 2A; Paras [0061], [0064], [0065]),
the second switching engine (234) is configured to change transmission directions of
the second sub-wavelength light beams for being incident on a plurality of second beam combining regions comprised in the second beam combining member (Fig. 2A; Paras [0048], [0061], [0069]), wherein the first switching engine and the second switching engine jointly change transmission directions of sub-wavelength light beams along a wavelength plane and a port plane, the wavelength plane and the port plane are perpendicular to each other, and both the wavelength plane and the port plane are parallel to transmission directions of the first light beams (Figs. 2A, 2B; Paras [0045-0069]);
the second beam combining regions are configured to perform beam combining
on the received second sub-wavelength light beams to form third light beams, and the second beam combining member is configured to transmit the third light beams to the output ports (Fig. 2A; Paras [0069] and [0070]).
However, Neilson does not explicitly teach the first lens group comprising an odd quantity of lenses.
Demolder compared and contrasted the known state of the art of 3-lens system for combining optical beams with the invention of Harvard team’s of new metasurface flat lens.
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It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time of filing to recognize the lens system as shown by Demolder is well-known in the optics art for combining optical beams would be modifiable to the lens 214d in Neilson’s optical system. One would be motivated to employ the beam combining lens system well-known in the art for its widely availability.
Regarding the method steps of claims 15-17, the examiner considers the operation of the optical system of Neilson / Demolder teach all the method steps as recited in the claims. For this reason, the examiner shall combine the method claims with the rejection of the product claims.
Claims 2 and 19. Neilson in view of Demolder (Neilson / Demolder) teach the at least one lens comprised in the first lens group is configured to converge the plurality of second light beams to the second dispersion member along the wavelength plane or the port plane (Fig. 2A, Paras [0061], [0064]).
Regarding claims 3-4, 12-13, 16-17, and 20, Neilson / Demolder teach the invention of claim 1 and further teach:
a first transmission region of the switching and separation module is configured to receive the first light beams, and transmit the first light beams to the first dispersion member in a transmission manner (Paras [0048], [0061], [0069]);
a reflection region of the switching and separation module is configured to receive the second light beams, and transmit the second light beams to the first lens group in a reflection manner (Para [0045], the transmission of the reflective beam is also separation);
a second transmission region of the switching and separation module is configured to receive the third light beams, and transmit the third light beams to the output ports in the transmission manner (Paras [0048], [0061], [0069]).
Neilson / Demolder do not explicitly teach the first dispersion member, the second dispersion member, the first beam combining member, and the second beam combining member are a same grating, the first switching engine and the second switching engine are the same switching engine, and the optical switching apparatus further comprises a switching and separation module.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time of filing to recognize grating of Neilson can fulfill all the functions as recited above through spectral beam combining. The beams (i.e., first, second, and third beams) have different wavelengths which hit the grating at an angle specific to the wavelength, and the grating can be designed for all incoming wavelengths to exit at the same angle. Thus the multiple beams leaving the grating at the same angle would overlap and form a beam with multiple wavelengths. This is the fundamental concept of grating functioning as a multiplexer. Furthermore, The first and second switching engine are the same engine by tailoring the switching to function to operate on specific wavelength(s). Therefore, one having ordinary skill in the art would recognize to form a compact by employing the same structure for multiple purposes (i.e., switching engine, dispersion member, combining member etc.).
Regarding claim 5, Neilson / Demolder teach the invention of claim 3, but do not explicitly teach the distance between the switching and separation module comprised in the optical switching apparatus and the first lens group is equal to an equivalent focal length of the first lens group.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the invention to optimize the focal length between the switching/ separation module and the first lens group for the optical beams to be received efficiently, since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art, In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233 (C.C.P.A. 1955).
Claim 8-9. Neilson / Demolder teach 8. the optical switching apparatus comprises a plurality of input ports, a second lens group (214f) is further comprised between the plurality of input ports and the first dispersion member, and the second lens group comprises an odd quantity of lenses; and the second lens group is configured to make a plurality of first light beams incident on a first region and a second region of the first dispersion member at different incident angles; wherein the first region and the second region overlap on the first dispersion member. The first and second region are arbitrarily assigned. In combination with the dispersion member performing multiple functions, it would have been obvious the first and second region are overlapping in space and function. See Fig. 2A above.
Regarding claim 10, Neilson / Demolder teach the first dispersion member is configured to emit different first sub-wavelength light beams at different emission angles (Fig. 2B, see beams 216).
Regarding claim 11, Neilson / Demolder teach the invention of claim 1 but do not teach the invention as recited in claim 11. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add another stage of combining, dispersion, beam steering, and/or separation with a third lens group would have been obvious to further scale the optical switching system to handle more bandwidth, since it has been held that mere duplication of the essential working parts of a device involves only routine skill in the art. St. Regis Paper Co. v. Bemis Co., 193 USPQ 8 (1977).
Regarding claim 14, , Neilson / Demolder teach the wavelengths of the plurality of first sub-wavelength light beams received by a same first switching region are at least partially the same, overlapping bandwidths (Fig. 1 and 3B).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Erin D Chiem whose telephone number is (571)272-3102. The examiner can normally be reached 10 am - 6 pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas A. Hollweg can be reached at (571) 270-1739. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ERIN D CHIEM/Examiner, Art Unit 2874
/THOMAS A HOLLWEG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2874
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