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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.
Applicant's submission filed on 21 July 2026 has been entered.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 21 July 2026 complies with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the examiner has considered the information disclosure statement (please see the form PTO-1449 attached to the previously mailed form PTO-2300 of 05 August 2026).
Drawings
The drawings submitted have been reviewed and determined to facilitate understanding of the invention. The drawings are accepted as submitted.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
Claims 1-4 and 6-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Japanese Document H7-33475 (“JP1”), cited in Applicant’s IDS received 21 July 2026 (please note that text citations herein are directed to the English language translation provided by Applicant).
Regarding Claim 1, JP1 describes an optical cable (see Figs 3-4) comprising:
optical fiber units (6) each including a bundle of optical fibers (3),
wherein the optical fiber units are twisted together in an S-Z configuration in which a twisting direction of the optical fiber units is reversed at a reversal part and an adjacent reversal part adjacent to the reversal part (see Fig 4 and [0002], [0009], [0012]), and
a twisting angle, by which the optical fiber units are twisted in a circumferential direction between the reversal part and the adjacent reversal part, is 540 degrees or greater (see [0006]-[0007], [0010], [0011]).
Regarding Claims 2-3, JP1 describes the twisting angle is 1440 degrees or less (“995 degrees”, see [0010])
Regarding Claim 4, JP1 describes ach of the optical fiber units further including a bundling member (5) that bundles the optical fibers.
Regarding Claim 6, JP1 describes the twisting angle in an S direction of the S-Z configuration is the same as the twisting angle in a Z direction of the S-Z configuration (see [0010]-[0011]).
Regarding Claim 7, JP1 describes the optical fiber units as including anything onto which the optical fiber units are wound (see Fig 2). Please note that while JP1 describes the optical fiber units (6) as twisted around a central member (7; see [0009]), the central member is not included as part of any of the optical fiber units, as described by the claim language.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
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.
Claim 5 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP1 as applied to Claim 4 above, and further in view of US Patent Application Publication US 2021/0063661 A1 to Kumar et al. (“US1”).
JP1 describes an optical cable with optical fiber units comprising bundling members as set forth herein above. JP1 further describes each of the optical fiber units further including an optical fiber ribbon (2). JP1 does not describe the fiber ribbons as intermittently-connected optical fiber ribbons.
US1 describes an optical cable (Fig 1) comprising:
optical fiber units (defined by 102) each including a bundle of optical fibers (see [0035]),
wherein each of the optical fiber units further includes a bundling member (102) that bundles the optical fibers, and
wherein each of the optical fiber units further includes an intermittently-connected optical fiber ribbon (see [0035]).
US2 describes that the buffer tubes, “may include plurality of loose optical fibers, a conventional ribbons, a rollable ribbons or intermittent bonded ribbons.” (see [0035]).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the intermittently bonded ribbons of US2 in place of the conventional ribbon stack of US1. The motivation for doing so would have been to make a simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JERRY RAHLL whose telephone number is (571)272-2356. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00am-5:00pm.
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, Uyen-Chau Le can be reached at 571-272-2397. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JERRY RAHLL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2874
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