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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 10-12 withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 07/09/2026.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 recites “the capacitors shorter than the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips and thicker than the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips” it should read “the capacitors length shorter than the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips and the capacitors thickness thicker than the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips”
Appropriate correction is required.
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) 1-2 and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Krasulick (US Patent US-11307440-B2) in the view of Hirayama (US Patent US-20170310078-A1), hereinafter Hirayama.
Regarding claim 1 , Karsulic teaches an optical communication device (Fig. 2&6 optical device 236 for high speed communication, see abstract) comprising:
a carrier substrate (Fig. 6 substrate 604);
a printed circuit board provided on one side of the carrier substrate in (Fig. 6 PCB 608 located at the bottom side of 604 ) a first direction (Fig. 6 first direction to be perpendicular to 604, e.g. the one coming out of the page);
electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chip provided on the other side of the carrier substrate (Fig. 6 EAM 612 is integrated with laser 616 is located on the top side of 604 located on the top side of substrate 604 );
an interposer (Fig. 2 portion of SiO2, 212, 224-2, 208-1, 208-2, 220 & portion of 208-5 and portion of 208-4 form an interpose, see annotated figure below) provided on the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips and the printed circuit board (Fig. 2 & 6 “interpose” is on 604& 608); and
capacitor provided on the interposer (Fig. 2 capacitor 200 is on “interpose”, see annotated figure below), the capacitor shorter than the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips (Fig. 6 capacitor 200 is shorter than 604) and thicker than the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chip (Fig. 2 capacitor 200 is thicker than chip 120 see annotated figure below; column 6 lines 39-40 states “An EAM device 612 (e.g., comprising the chip 120)”).
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Karsulic fails to teach a plurality of electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips, plurality of capacitors.
However, Hirayama teaches a plurality of electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips (Fig. 9 semicondcutor elements 20; [0019] states “The semiconductor element 20 integrates a semiconductor laser diode (LD) monolithically with an optical modulator type of an electron-absorption (EA)”), and plurality of capacitors (Fig. 9 capacitors 64).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Karsulic’s device with a plurality of electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips and plurality of capacitors (e.g. having plurality of capacitors and EAMs 612 keeping their connection as shown in Fig. 2 from Karsulic, see annotated figure below) as taught by Hirayama because it would allow to have a plurality of optical modules being control separately, e.g. each module having different wavelength .
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Regarding claim 2, Karsulic’s modified device teaches the optical communication device of claim 1, wherein the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips are aligned with the capacitors in a second direction (Karsulic’s modified device the plurality of EAM and capacitors would be aligned, see annotated figure 6 in claim 1 in a second direction) crossing the first direction (second direction is crossing the first direction).
Regarding claim 8, Karsulic’s modified device teaches the optical communication device of claim 1, wherein each of the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips (annotated Fig. 6 in claim 1 plurality of EAM 612 ) comprises: an element substrate (from Karsulic Fig. 1 platform 100 comprises substrate 104 which is the equivalent to substrate 604 in Fig. 6); an optical waveguide provided on the element substrate (from Karsulic Fig. 1 first waveguide 118 is a waveguide, see also Fig. 6) and extending in one direction (from Karsulic Fig. 1 first waveguide 118 extends on a direction of beam propagation 128); a laser source (from Karsulic Fig. 1 active region 124, see also Fig. 6 laser 616) provided on one side of the element substrate and connected to the optical waveguide (from Karsulic Fig. 1 active region 124 is provided to one side of platform 100 and connected to 112); and a modulator (Fig. 6 Eam 612) provided on the other side of the element substrate (from Karsulic Fig. 6 Eam 612 is on the other side of platform 100 that comprises substrate 604) and connected to the optical waveguide (from Karsulic Fig. Fig. 6 Eam 612 is connected to first waveguide 118).
Claim(s) 3 and 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Krasulick (US Patent US-11307440-B2) in the view of Hirayama (US Patent US-20170310078-A1), as per claim 2, in further view of Fujiwara (Foreign Patent JP-2012023065-A), hereinafter Fujiwara and Wijeyesekera (US Patent US-6404615-B1), hereinafter Wijeyesekera.
Regarding claim 3, Karsulic’s modified device teaches the optical communication device of claim 2.
Karsulic’s modified device fails to teach each of the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips and the capacitors has a width of 100 μm to 400 μm in the second direction.
However, Fujiwara teaches an electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chip has a width of 100 μm to 400 μm (Fig. 1 width of EAM 12 and laser 11 to be 200-400 mm).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Karsulic’s device in the view of Hirayama with electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips with a with of 100 μm to 400 μm (e.g. each EAM 612/laser 616 to have a width of 200-400 mm in the second direction) as taught by Fujiwara because it would allow to have space to include a probe for inspection at individual chip level.
Karsulic’s modified device fails to teach each capacitor has a width of 100 μm to 400 μm in the second direction.
However, Wijeyesekera teaches a capacitor has a width of 100 μm to 400 μm (column 17 lines 29-30 “possible (square) capacitor sizes include 100 micrometers by 100 micrometers”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Karsulic’s device in the view of Hirayama with capacitors having a width of 100 μm to 400 μm as taught by Wijeyesekera because it would allow to have a capacitance of five picofarads (from Wijeyesekera column 17 line 33).
Regarding claim 4, Karsulic’s modified device teaches the optical communication device of claim 3, wherein the width of each of the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips is 200 μm (from Fujiwara Fig. 1 with of EAM 12 and laser 11 to be 200-400 mm).
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Krasulick (US Patent US-11307440-B2) in the view of Hirayama (US Patent US-20170310078-A1), as per claim 8, in further view of Imai (US Patent US-5706117-A), hereinafter Imai.
Regarding claim 9, Karsulic’s modified device teaches the optical communication device of claim 8.
Karsulic’s modified device fails to teach wherein each of the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips further comprises a detector provided to be adjacent to the laser source and configured to detect laser light in the optical waveguide.
However, Imai teaches the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips (Fig. 2 LC 12 & EA 4) further comprises a detector (Fig. 2 PD 18) provided to be adjacent to the laser source (Fig. 2 PD 18 is adjacent to LD 12) and configured to detect laser light (Fig. 2 PD 18 detects light 16).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Karsulic’s modified device in the view of Hirayama with a detector provided to be adjacent to the laser source and configured to detect laser light in the optical waveguide (e.g. adding a photodetector adjacent to each laser 616 from Karsulic to detect laser light 118 ) as taught by Imai because it would allow to detect the generated light of the laser and further control the drive current of the laser (from Imai column 3 lines 41-50).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-7 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.
Regarding claim 5, Karsulic’s modified device teaches the optical communication device of claim 4, wherein the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips are arranged to have a pitch (see annotated figure in claim 1 “pitch”).
Karsulic’s modified device fails to teach wherein the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips are arranged to have a pitch that is 2 to 2.5 times the width of each of the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips.
Chand teaches a pitch that seems to be ~3 times the width of the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips in Fig. 7, see figure below. However, it would not be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to optimize the device to have a pitch of 2 to 2.5 times because Chad’s invention is not focus on the spacing of the electro-absorption modulator-integrated laser chips in Fig. 7, see [0052], but rather the length of the wire that provides RF signal to the EAMs for minimizing crosstalk. In addition, Fig. 7 is not in scale.
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Nakamura teaches electro absorption modulators EA1-3 that pitch varies by the width of the EA1-3 resulting on a pitch of ~1.5-3 the width of the EA, see Fig. 1 below. However, Fig. 1 has only a single laser 4 rather than a laser for each EA.
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Claims 6-7 depends of claim 5.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Chand (US Patent US-20030043431-A1) teaches an array of EAMs, Kim (US Patent US-20090147456-A1) teaches an EAM on a PCB.
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/FERNANDA ADRIANA CAMACHO ALANIS/Examiner, Art Unit 2828 /MINSUN O HARVEY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2828
