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
Information Disclosure Statement
The prior art documents submitted by Applicant(s) in the information Disclosure Statement(s) have all been considered and made of record (note the attached copy of form(s) PTO-1449).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4-8 are 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.
Claims 10-12 are allowed.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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.
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Claims 1-3 and 9 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Masaki” et al., JP 2004045777 A.
Regarding claims 1, Masaki teaches a plastic optical fiber (see figs. 1 and abstract) comprising:
a core (see at least abstract); a clad disposed on an outer circumference of the core (see at least abstract) and including a fluorine-containing resin (see at least col.1, last parag.-col. 3); and
However, Masaki does not explicitly state that the above coating layer “consisting” of a material.
wherein the material has an elongation, as measured by the following test, of 0.05% or less, the test includes: placing a strip-shaped specimen made of the material in a measurement atmosphere at 20°C and 5%RH; humidifying the measurement atmosphere from 5%RH to 30%RH; and measuring the elongation of the specimen on the basis of a longitudinal length LO of the specimen in a dry state and a longitudinal length L1 of the specimen after the humidification.
Nevertheless, Masaki states that:
The present invention uses a polypropylene-based resin as a coating material
for a first coating layer
“the first coating layer is composed of resin whose main component is
polypropylene.”
Thus it would have been obvious to an ordinary artisan skilled in the art when the invention was made to use polypropylene as the sole/main material for conducting the method test aas claimed which would yield the same results as such material is the same material used by the applicant to conduct the test would yield the same characteristics with predictable results
The statements advanced in rejection of claim 1, above, as to the applicability and disclosure of and the motivation are incorporated herein in rejection of the following claims as follows:
2. (Original) The plastic optical fiber according to claim 1, wherein the elongation is 0.018% or less (similar arguments made in rejection of claim 1, is applicable to this claim) .
3. (Currently Amended) The plastic optical fiber according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the material is free of a fluorine-containing resin (see related translation paragraphs, as this material being the sole ingredient.).
9. (Currently Amended) The plastic optical fiber according to any one of claims 1 to 8 claim1,wherein the core includes a fluorine-containing resin (see specification).
Claims 6 is rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over “, Masaki ” et al., as applied in rejection of claim 1, and further in view of SHIROKURA et al. JP 2004029548 A .
With regard to claim 6, Masaki does not teach wherein the clad includes: a first clad layer disposed in contact with the core; and a second clad layer disposed closer to the outer circumference of the clad than the first clad layer is’ such limitation is taught by SHIROKURA, in the same filed of invention and thus it would have been obvious to an ordinary artisan skilled in the art when the invention was made to modify Masaki’s cladding layer with an extra outer cladding layer to minimize optical loss.
Citation of Relevant Prior Art
Prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure. In accordance with MPEP 707.05 the following references are pertinent in rejection of this application since they provide substantially the same information disclosure as this patent does. These references are:
US 20220206213 A1
US 20200264365 A1
JP 2006178220 A
US 7406239 B2
US 7356231 B2
JP 2004045777 A
JP 2004029548 A
US 20150177456 A1
US 20050062181 A1
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KAVEH C KIANNI whose telephone number is (571)272-2417. The examiner can normally be reached on 9-19.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas Hollweg can be reached on571-270-1739. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KAVEH C KIANNI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2874