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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 16, 18-19, 21, 23-25, 30, 34-35 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Xie et al. (“Selectable-FSR 10 GHz Granularity WDM Superchannnel Filter in a Reconfigurable Photonic Integrated Circuit” Journal of Lightwave technology Vol 36, No 13, July 2, 2018, from hereinafter “Xie”).
Regarding claims 16, 19, 24-25, 30, and 34-35, Xie teaches a photonic integrated circuit (see page 2619) for performing optical transient computing on an RF-modulated optical carrier signal, the photonic integrated circuit comprising at least two parallelly operable optical signal processing units (see Fig. 1), each optical signal processing unit including an optical filter device (5, 6) and an optical delay element (29-31), connected to an input port and an output port of the filter device and arranged externally to the filter device, for providing an externally delayed feedback signal to the filter device, an input section of the delay element being configured to coherently combine the modulated carrier signal with said externally delayed feedback signal to create a new filter input signal, wherein the group delay induced by the delay element is comprised in the range from 1 ps to 100 ps (see page 2622 section III, 25 ps) and the 3 dB (see page 2620, Section I) optical bandwidth of a filter band of the filter device is less than the inverse of the group delay, and the delay element further being adapted to spectrally align at least a portion of the filter band with a resonance in the feedback signal, and wherein center frequencies of filter bands associated with different optical signal processing units are offset, or tunable to have an offset, between 1 GHz and 100 GHz (see page 2625 section V, also regarding claim 19) relative to each other, thus allowing different portions of the modulated carrier signal spectrum to be filtered. Further regarding claims 24-25, and 30, Xie teaches a trainable readout circuit configured for weighting output signals from the plurality of signal processing units, or signals derived therefrom, and for combining the weighted signals into at least one readout signal (see page 2620, section II). Further regarding claims 34-35, Xie teaches applying a digitally RF-modulated optical carrier signal to the photonic integrated circuit (see page 2620, section II, part C).
Regarding claim 18, Xie teaches wherein the filter device and the delay element of each processing unit form a ring cavity, the input port and the output port of the filter device being different unidirectional ports of the filter device and the filter device being configured to operate in transmission mode (see abstract), wherein the filter uses a ring resonator assisted tapped delay line topology.
Regarding claim 21, Xie teaches that each filter device is a bandpass filter (see abstract), wherein there is a spectral filter with a flat-top passband).
Regarding claim 23, Xie teaches wherein the delay element of at least one of the plurality of optical signal processing units comprises at least one of the following: a further optical filter device, a variable optical attenuator, an optical gain element, a phase modulator (see two Mach-Zehnder modulators, page 2623, section IV).
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) 17 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xie.
Regarding claim 17, Xie fails to specifically teach that the filter device and the delay element form a linear cavity.
Although Xie fails to teach a linear cavity, Xie does teach wherein the filter uses a ring resonator assisted tapped delay line topology.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the well-known linear cavity in place of a ring cavity since it is well known in the art to be an art recognized equivalent in order for the system to work correctly and efficiently.
Regarding claim 22, Xie fails to specifically teach Xie teaches that each filter device is a bandstop filter or notching comb filter.
Although Xie doesn’t specifically teach a bandstop filter or notching comb filter, Xie does teach a bandpass filter (see abstract), wherein there is a spectral filter with a flat-top passband).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the well-known bandstop or notching comb filter since it is well known in the art to be an art recognized equivalent in order for the system to work correctly and efficiently.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 20, 26-29, 31-33 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.
The best prior art of record fails to specifically teach, for example in claim 26, wherein the at least one electronic filter is a digital or analog finite impulse response filter of filter order M≥0 and having a set of adjustable filter weights.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: USPGPub 2019/0285815 to Sugiyama.
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/LISA M CAPUTO/Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2874