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
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.
Claim(s) 1 and 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wachter (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2013/0322879 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Wachter teaches in FIG. 5E an optical communication device comprising: a first optical switch (I/O matrix switch 22 #1 of the first stage; Wachter teaches in paragraph [0032] optical switching) that is connected to a plurality of optical transmission lines (I/O lines 24 and 28 and line connecting switch 22 and switch 34; see also paragraph [0002]) and outputs an optical signal input from any of the optical transmission lines to another optical transmission line (the line connecting switch 22 #1 and switch 34); a second optical switch that is connected to a plurality of optical transmission lines and outputs an optical signal input from any of the optical transmission lines to another optical transmission line (I/O matrix switch 22 #2 of the 3rd stage with I/O lines 24 and 28 and the line connecting switch 22 #2 and switch 34); and a multicast transferer configured to perform multicast transfer of an optical signal transmitted from a first device connected to the first optical switch to one or more second devices connected to the second optical switch (the core matric switch 34 multicasts the signal received from input line 1 to output 21 of the 3rd stage I/O switch 22).
Claim 7 is rejected based on the same reason for rejecting claim 1.
Claim 8 is rejected based on the same reason for rejecting claim 1 because an apparatus implies the method of using it.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-6 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.
Conclusion
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skl16 February 2026
/SHI K LI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635