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 § 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) 1, and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over PARK (US 20210184773, IDS), in view of Hiroshi (JP2006054929, IDS).
Regarding claim 1, and 9-10, PARK discloses an optical transceiver (fig. 3, 1100-1) comprising: an optical transmission unit (fig. 3, 1130-1) that outputs a first optical signal obtained by superimposing an optical signal for giving an instruction to another optical transceiver (fig. 3, 1200-1) on a first main signal that is an optical signal for transmitting communication data to the other optical transceiver; an optical reception unit (fig. 3, 1150-1) that receives a second optical signal from the other optical transceiver (fig. 3 1200-1); and a control unit (fig. 2, 1110) that controls the optical transmission unit and the optical reception unit.
PARK does not specifically disclose that the control unit controls the optical transmission unit modulates the first main signal into a signal having a waveform, whose amplitude transitions between two levels by amplitude shift-keying or phase shift-keying to superimpose a first superimposed signal , which is the optical signal superimposed on the first main signal, on the first main signal, and controls an amplitude of the first superimposed signal based on a value obtained by multiplying an amplitude of the first main signal by a predetermined ratio.
However, Hiroshi from the same field disclose that the control unit controls the optical transmission unit modulates the first main signal into a signal having a waveform, whose amplitude transitions between two levels by amplitude shift-keying or phase shift-keying to superimpose a first superimposed signal , which is the optical signal superimposed on the first main signal, on the first main sign (fig. 10(A), and 0062), and controls an amplitude of the first superimposed signal based on a value obtained by multiplying an amplitude of the first main signal by a predetermined ratio (0062).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one ordinary skilled in the art at the time when the application is filed to incorporate the teaching of Hiroshi into the system of PARK in order to superimpose the control data for transmission.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over PARK (US 20210184773, IDS), in view of Hiroshi (JP2006054929, IDS), further in view of Zampetti et al. (US 20110299853).
Regarding claim 6, the modified system of PARK and Hiroshi does not specifically disclose that the first main signal by Manchester encoding. However, Manchester encoding is well known in the art, for example, Zampetti et al. disclose using Manchester encoding for an optical communication system (Zampetti: 0035). Therefore, it would have been obvious for one ordinary skilled in the art at the time when the application is filed to use Manchester encoding in the modified system of PARK and Hiroshi into the system in order to recover the clock with exceptionally high quality (Zampetti: 0035).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2, 3-5, 7-8 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Araki et al. (US 20160204875) discloses an optical transmission system;
Kamura et al. (US 20160204876) discloses an optical transmission apparatus for transmitting wavelength-multiplexed light; optical transmission apparatus for transmitting wavelength-multiplexed light;
Tanimura et al. (US 8989572 B2) discloses an optical node apparatus that establishes an optical path between a first optical node and a second;
Mizuguchi et al. (US 20130259479) discloses an optical transceiving apparatus includes an optical transmitting device performing polarization multiplexing on and transmitting.
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/QUAN ZHEN WANG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2685