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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-6 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as anticipated by or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Inoue (US 2020/0256995).
Regarding Claim 1, Inoue discloses a distance measuring device [0039; 0085] comprising: a photonic integrated circuit that has a function compatible with a coherent LiDAR method that measures distance based on interference between reception light [0042], which is reflected light of transmission light irradiated on a target [0039-43], and reference light [Fig 12; 0086-87], wherein the photonic integrated circuit independently includes …and a second coupler for the reference light as optical couplers that couple the inside and outside of an optical waveguide [Fig 13; 0086-92]. Inoue teaches a first coupler for the transmission light [#104 of Fig 1, #290 of Fig 11-13; 0041-44; 0053-57; 0086-90], as this would assist in coupling output light into the optical waveguide.
Regarding Claim 2, Inoue also discloses, wherein the photonic integrated circuit further includes a converter that modulates the transmission light [#106 of Fig 1; 0040-42].
Regarding Claim 3, Inoue also discloses wherein at least some optical couplers of the first coupler and the second coupler is a grating coupler [0053-54; 0080; 0087].
Regarding Claim 4, Inoue also discloses wherein the photonic integrated circuit includes a structure in which a plurality of grating couplers arranged in a row are connected by a spiral optical waveguide [0086-89].
Regarding Claim 5, Inoue also discloses an optical interferometer block that causes interference between the reception light and the reference light; and a receiving circuit that receives the interfered reception light and reference light [#210 of Fig 1, 2; 0043-46].
Regarding Claim 6, Inoue also discloses wherein the optical interferometer block is arranged so as to straddle the photonic integrated circuit and the receiving circuit [#210 of Fig 1, 2; 0043-46].
Regarding Claim 11, Inoue also discloses wherein the receiving circuit extracts target information regarding the target based on a received signal obtained from the interfered reception light and reference light [0045].
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) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Inoue (US 2020/0256995) in view of Baba (US 2019/0204419).
Regarding Claim 12, Inoue teaches a distance measuring system [0039; 0085] comprising: a photonic integrated circuit that has a function compatible with a coherent LiDAR method that measures distance based on interference between reception light [0042], which is reflected light of transmission light irradiated on a target [0039-43], and reference light [Fig 12; 0086-87]; wherein the photonic integrated circuit independently includes …and a second coupler for the reference light as optical couplers that couple the inside and outside of an optical waveguide [Fig 13; 0086-92]. Inoue teaches a first coupler for the transmission light [#104 of Fig 1, #290 of Fig 11-13; 0041-44; 0053-57; 0086-90], as this would assist in coupling output light into the optical waveguide. Inoue does not explicitly teach – but Baba does teach and an external optical system including a telescope that deflects the transmission light to different emission angles for each pixel and a scanner that can deflect the transmission light from the telescope at least in a direction that intersects an arrangement direction of pixels [#24a, #24b of Fig 9; 0154-58]. It would have been obvious to modify the system of Inoue to include an optical telescope so that two-dimensional light beam angle sweeping from the waveguide can be realized.
Claim(s) 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Inoue (US 2020/0256995), as applied to claim 1, 5 above, and further in view of Rezk (US 2023/0015081 – also published as WO 2020/256942).
Regarding Claims 7 -8, wherein the optical interferometer block has a plurality of optical elements including a polarizing beam splitter and a wave plate [0023; 0035; 0038-42]… and a gap between the plurality of optical elements in the optical interferometer block is filled with an optical material that transmits a wavelength of the transmission light [0023; 0035; 0038-42]. It would have been obvious to modify the device of Inoue to include a wave plate and polarizing beam splitter at allow the reflected light to be reflected to separate optical receivers, produce a time-shifted waveform, as a temporal phase difference between the two waveforms generates a beat frequency measured on the optical receivers.
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Inoue (US 2020/0256995), as applied to claim 1, 6 above, and further in view of Baba (US 2019/0204419).
Regarding Claim 9, Inoue does not explicitly teach – but Baba does teach wherein a microlens array is disposed at least between the optical interferometer block and the photonic integrated circuit and/or between the optical interferometer block and the receiving circuit [#24a, #24b of Fig 9; 0154-58]. It would have been obvious to modify the device of Inoue to include a microlens array so that two-dimensional light beam angle sweeping from the waveguide can be realized.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Inoue (US 2020/0256995), as applied to claim 1, 6 above, and further in view of Heck (US 2015/0378187).
Regarding Claim 10, Inoue does not explicitly teach – but Heck does teach wherein an optical deflection element is disposed between the optical interferometer block and the photonic integrated circuit [Fig 5A; 0049-50]. It would have been obvious to modify the device of Inoue to include a deflector as prisms enable the circuit to perform beam steering in an axis of preference.
Conclusion
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JAMES R. HULKA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3645
/JAMES R HULKA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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