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 § 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 18-20 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.
Claim 18 recites the limitation "the PIC.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
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.
Claims 1-9, 12-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as anticipated by or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Hosseini (US 2022/0011409 A1, Published January 13, 2022).
As to claim 1, Hosseini discloses an apparatus, comprising:
a laser source to output a beam (Hosseini at Fig. 4, in particular, optical I/O port 102; ¶ [0028] discloses “Each subarray (100) includes an optical I/O port (102) and an optional 1-to-K optical splitter (103), and one or more SCPAs (101). Each of the optical I/Os is fed by a frequency-modulated light source provided by an off-chip or on-chip laser”);
a plurality of optical output couplers, each of the output couplers to propagate the beam away from the coupler and to collect optical power reflected back toward the coupler (Hosseini at Figs. 1, 3, 5, optical antennas 200, 505);
a receiver to detect the reflected optical power (Hosseini at Fig. 4, coherent receiver block 306; ¶ [0028] discloses “An optical switch network (104) further selects one out of the M antennas (105), where M is an integer, to send and receive Frequency Modulated (FM) light for ranging and detection. The antennas can be physically arranged in either one-dimensional (e.g., linear array) or two-dimensional arrays on the chip (e.g., rectangular array, regular array, etc.). In this design, the selected antennas transmit the light into free space and receive the returned optical signals passively. The coherent detection function including optical mixing and optical-to-electrical conversion is done in the coherent receiver block (306)”); and
an optical switch network coupled between the output couplers and the receiver, wherein the optical switch network comprise a plurality of first ports, each of the first ports optically coupled to one of the output couplers, and a second port optically coupled to the receiver (Hosseini at Figs 3, 5, optical switch network 104, 503),
wherein the switch network is to optically couple each of the first ports to the second port in a time divided manner (Hosseini at Claim 13 including claim 1; ¶ [0025] discloses “The optical switch is configured to switchably couple the input port 102 to the optical antennas within the coherent pixels, thereby forming optical paths between the input port and the optical antennas. The optical switch may include a plurality of active optical splitters. In some embodiments, the optical switch optically couples the frequency modulated laser signal to each of the optical antennas one at [sic] time over a scanning period of the FMCW transceiver”).
As to claim 2, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the optical switch network comprises a cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer (CMZI) structure comprising a first MZI structure in serial cascade with a second MZI structure (Hosseini at Fig. 4A, optical switch network 104 contemplates a cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer structure).1
As to claim 3, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the first and second MZI structures comprise polarization independent optical waveguides (Examiner takes an official notice that polarization independent optical wave guides are well-known in the art).
As to claim 4, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the receiver comprises a polarization splitter coupled to the second port (Hosseini at Fig. 8, in particular, polarization splitter 803).
As to claim 5, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 4, wherein the receiver comprises: a local oscillator tap coupled between the polarization splitter and the laser source; a coherent mixer coupled to an output of the local oscillator tap and an output of the polarization splitter; and a balanced photodetector coupled to an output of the coherent mixer (Hosseini at Fig. 2; ¶ [0027]).
As to claim 6, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 5, wherein the receiver comprises a single polarization splitter and a single local oscillator tap (Hosseini at Fig. 2; ¶ [0027]).
As to claim 7, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 6, wherein the beam comprises a plurality of center wavelengths, and wherein the receiver comprises a plurality of resonant ring filters, each tuned to a different one of the plurality of center wavelengths (Hosseini at Fig. 2; ¶ [0027]. Examiner takes an official notice that tunable resonant ring filters are well-known in the art).
As to claim 8, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 1, wherein: the plurality of output couplers comprises N sets of M output couplers and N and M are each an integer number greater than one; the optical switch network comprises N 1:M switches; and further comprising a 1:N optical beam splitter between the laser source and the optical switch network (Hosseini at Figs. 1, 3, in particular).
As to claim 9, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 8, wherein the receiver comprises N receiver blocks (Hosseini at Fig. 3, coherent receiver blocks 306), and
each of the receiver blocks comprises a local oscillator tap coupled to one output of the beam splitter and a polarization splitter coupled to an input of one of the 1:M switches (Hosseini at Fig. 2; ¶ [0027]).
As to claim 12, Hosseini discloses an apparatus, comprising: a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) (Hosseini at ¶ [0022], [0025]), comprising:
an array of M optical output couplers, wherein M is an integer number not less than two (Hosseini at Figs. 1, 3, 5, optical antenna 200, 505);
a laser source (Hosseini at Fig. 4, in particular, optical I/O port 102; ¶ [0028] discloses “Each subarray (100) includes an optical I/O port (102) and an optional 1-to-K optical splitter (103), and one or more SCPAs (101). Each of the optical I/Os is fed by a frequency-modulated light source provided by an off-chip or on-chip laser”);
a receiver optically coupled between the laser source and the array of output couplers (Hosseini at Fig. 3a, coherent receiver block 306; ¶ [0028] discloses “An optical switch network (104) further selects one out of the M antennas (105), where M is an integer, to send and receive Frequency Modulated (FM) light for ranging and detection. The antennas can be physically arranged in either one-dimensional (e.g., linear array) or two-dimensional arrays on the chip (e.g., rectangular array, regular array, etc.). In this design, the selected antennas transmit the light into free space and receive the returned optical signals passively. The coherent detection function including optical mixing and optical-to-electrical conversion is done in the coherent receiver block (306)”); and
an optical switch network coupled between the receiver and the array of output couplers, the switch network comprising one input port optically coupled to the laser source and M output ports optically coupled to individual ones of the output couplers (Hosseini at Figs 3, 5, optical switch network 104, 503); and
CMOS circuitry coupled to the PIC (Hosseini at ¶ [0050]).
As to claim 13, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 12, wherein the switch network is to optically couple the input port to a single one of the M output couplers in a time divided manner (Hosseini at Claim 13 including claim 1; ¶ [0025] discloses “The optical switch is configured to switchably couple the input port 102 to the optical antennas within the coherent pixels, thereby forming optical paths between the input port and the optical antennas. The optical switch may include a plurality of active optical splitters. In some embodiments, the optical switch optically couples the frequency modulated laser signal to each of the optical antennas one at [sic] time over a scanning period of the FMCW transceiver”).
As to claim 14, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 12, wherein the switch network is one of a plurality of first switch networks and wherein the FMCW reflectometry transceiver further comprises a second switch network optically coupled between the receiver and the laser source, the second switch having a number of output ports that is equal to the number of first switch networks (Hosseini at Fig. 3A, optical switch network 104 in second row).
As to claim 15, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 14, wherein each of the first switch networks comprise a first cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer (CMZI) structure (Hosseini at Fig. 4A, optical switch network 104 contemplates a cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer structure).
As to claim 16, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 15, wherein the second switch network also comprises a second CMZI structure Hosseini at Fig. 4A, optical switch network 104 contemplates a cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer structure).
As to claim 17, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 16, wherein the first CMZI structures are more polarization independent than the second CMZI structure (Examiner takes an official notice that polarization independent optical wave guides are well-known in the art).
As to claim 18, Hosseini discloses an apparatus, comprising:
a plurality of optical output couplers, each of the output couplers to transmit optical power off the PIC and to receive reflected optical power back into the PIC (Hosseini at Figs. 1, 3, 5, optical antennas 200, 505);
a receiver to detect the reflected optical power (Hosseini at Fig. 4, coherent receiver block 306; ¶ [0028] discloses “An optical switch network (104) further selects one out of the M antennas (105), where M is an integer, to send and receive Frequency Modulated (FM) light for ranging and detection. The antennas can be physically arranged in either one-dimensional (e.g., linear array) or two-dimensional arrays on the chip (e.g., rectangular array, regular array, etc.). In this design, the selected antennas transmit the light into free space and receive the returned optical signals passively. The coherent detection function including optical mixing and optical-to-electrical conversion is done in the coherent receiver block (306)”); and
an optical switch network coupled between a plurality of output couplers and the receiver, wherein the optical switch network comprise a plurality of first ports coupled to individual ones of the plurality of output couplers, and a second port coupled to the receiver (Hosseini at Figs 3, 5, optical switch network 104, 503),
wherein the optical switch network is to couple each of the output couplers to the receiver in a time divided manner (Hosseini at Claim 13 including claim 1; ¶ [0025] discloses “The optical switch is configured to switchably couple the input port 102 to the optical antennas within the coherent pixels, thereby forming optical paths between the input port and the optical antennas. The optical switch may include a plurality of active optical splitters. In some embodiments, the optical switch optically couples the frequency modulated laser signal to each of the optical antennas one at [sic] time over a scanning period of the FMCW transceiver”).
As to claim 19, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 18, further comprising a laser source (Hosseini at Fig. 4, in particular, optical I/O port 102; ¶ [0028] discloses “Each subarray (100) includes an optical I/O port (102) and an optional 1-to-K optical splitter (103), and one or more SCPAs (101). Each of the optical I/Os is fed by a frequency-modulated light source provided by an off-chip or on-chip laser”),
the receiver coupled between the laser source and the optical switch network (Hosseini at Fig. 3a, coherent receiver block 306; ¶ [0028] discloses “An optical switch network (104) further selects one out of the M antennas (105), where M is an integer, to send and receive Frequency Modulated (FM) light for ranging and detection. The antennas can be physically arranged in either one-dimensional (e.g., linear array) or two-dimensional arrays on the chip (e.g., rectangular array, regular array, etc.). In this design, the selected antennas transmit the light into free space and receive the returned optical signals passively. The coherent detection function including optical mixing and optical-to-electrical conversion is done in the coherent receiver block (306)”).
As to claim 20, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 19, wherein the receiver comprises: a polarization splitter coupled to the second port (Hosseini at Fig. 8, in particular, polarization splitter 803);
a local oscillator tap coupled between the polarization splitter and the laser source; a coherent mixer coupled to an output of the polarization splitter and the local oscillator tap; and a balanced photodetector coupled to an output of the coherent mixer (Hosseini at Fig. 2; ¶ [0027]).
Claims 10, 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hosseini (US 2022/0011409 A1, Published January 13, 2022) in view of Hajati (US 2024/0069285 A1, Filed on July 17, 2023).
As to claim 10, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the laser source is a first laser source (Hosseini at Fig. 4, in particular, optical I/O port 102; ¶ [0028] discloses “Each subarray (100) includes an optical I/O port (102) and an optional 1-to-K optical splitter (103), and one or more SCPAs (101). Each of the optical I/Os is fed by a frequency-modulated light source provided by an off-chip or on-chip laser”).
Hosseini does not disclose a second laser source, wherein the first and second laser sources emit at a same center wavelength, and wherein the first and second laser sources are both optically coupled to the optical switch network.
However, Hajati disclose a second laser source, wherein the first and second laser sources emit at a same center wavelength, and wherein the first and second laser sources are both optically coupled to the optical switch network (Hajati at Fig 1; ¶ [0094]).
Hosseini discloses a base LIDAR system upon which the claimed invention is an improvement. Hajati discloses a comparable LIDAR system which has been improved in the same way as the claimed invention. Hence, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify or add to Hosseini the teachings of Hajati for the predictable result of providing transceiver arrays and scanning systems that are able to scan a target with high resolution and high throughput (Hajati at ¶ [0087]).
As to claim 11, Hosseini discloses the apparatus of claim 1.
Hosseini does not expressly disclose that the laser is a semiconductor laser, the optical switch network, and the output couplers are on a single photonic integrated circuit (PIC) die.
However, Hagati does disclose that the laser is a semiconductor laser, the optical switch network, and the output couplers are on a single photonic integrated circuit (PIC) die (Hagati at ¶ [0028]. In addition, MPEP 2144.04(V) establishes that making integral is obvious).
Hosseini discloses a base LIDAR system upon which the claimed invention is an improvement. Hajati discloses a comparable LIDAR system which has been improved in the same way as the claimed invention. Hence, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify or add to Hosseini the teachings of Hajati for the predictable result of providing transceiver arrays and scanning systems that are able to scan a target with high resolution and high throughput (Hajati at ¶ [0087]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Zhang (CN 120222142 A, Filed on December 25, 2023 – translation attached) is made of record for its relevance to claim 2 by disclosure of a cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer at page ## and Figs. 1-2:
“A plurality of optical switches may be arranged in an array to form an optical switch array 120, as shown in dashed line box I in FIG. 1, which is composed of cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) 121, as shown in FIG. 2, A MZI is typically connected by a first directional coupler 124 to two waveguides as upper and lower arms, wherein one or both arms are modulated by a first phase shifter 123 and then connected to a first directional coupler 124.”
Talty (US 2020/0103502 A1, Published April 2, 2020) is made of record for tis relevance for its relevance to claims 1, 12, and 18 by its disclosure of the following at Fig. 12:
PNG
media_image1.png
548
779
media_image1.png
Greyscale
PNG
media_image2.png
672
728
media_image2.png
Greyscale
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sanjiv D Patel whose telephone number is (571)270-5731. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00 am - 5:00 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, William Boddie can be reached at 571-272-0666. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/Sanjiv D. Patel/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2625
06/11/2026
1 See Zhang in Conclusion Section below.
Prosecution Insights