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)(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) 1-2, 9-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US Patent Application Publication No. US 2019/0293877 A1 to Matsushita et al. (hereinafter “Matsushita”).
It is noted that claim 1 contains “product-by-process” limitations, wherein “product” claim is limited by the process of manufacturing the product (e.g. “… a stress applied to an outermost peripheral portion of the cladding is 100 MPa or less…”).
As stated in MPEP §2113, “even though product-by-process claims are limited by and defined by the process, determination of patentability is based on the product itself. The patentability of a product does not depend on its method of production. If the product in the product-by-process claim is the same as or obvious from a product of the prior art, the claim is unpatentable even though the prior product was made by a different process.” In re Thorpe, 777 F.2d 695, 698, 227 USPQ 964, 966 (Fed. Cir. 1985). As such, while the product-by-process limitations are not ignored, such limitations are not given patentable weight unless such limitations impart distinguishable structural features to the claimed product that distinguishes the claimed product over the prior art.
Matsushita discloses a bent optical fiber comprising: a glass optical fiber (10 in Fig. 1; paragraph [0027]) having a first end face and a second end face (adjacent to elements 100 and 30 as shown in Fig. 1) and including a core extending along a central axis from the first end face toward the second end face (11 in Fig. 2), a stress applying portion extending along the central axis for applying stress to the core (i.e. the bent portion shown as “BA” is the stress applying portion; see paragraph [0020]- although the stress is reduced, the bent portion necessarily is applied some amount of stress. Therefore, the claimed limitations of claim 1 is anticipated), and a cladding covering the core and the stress applying portion (cladding is necessarily present in optical fibers), a resin coating (12 in Fig. 2) provided on an outer peripheral surface of the glass optical fiber, wherein an exposed region (“BA” in Fig. 2), serving as a portion of the glass optical fiber from which a portion of the resin coating has been removed and including the first end face (i.e. better shown in Fig. 3), includes a bent portion provided at a position away from the first end face and having a curvature of 0.1 (1/mm) or more (paragraph [0030]).
Note that the limitation “a stress applied to an outermost peripheral portion of the cladding is 100 MPa or less, and a stress applied to the core is 30 MPa or more” does not impart any structural features that are distinguishable from the prior art device shown by Matsushita.
Regarding claim 2, Matsushita discloses wherein the exposed region includes a first non-bent region (“A” in Fig. 2) having a curvature of less than 0.1 (1/mm) and a second non-bent region (“C” in Fig. 2) having a curvature of less than 0.1 (1/mm) located on an opposite side of the first non-bent region with respect to the bent portion.
Regarding claim 9, Matsushita discloses a connecting member attached to a tip portion of the bent optical fiber including the first end face (Fig. 3), and a reinforcing member reinforcing at least the bent portion of the bent optical fiber (21, 22 in Fig. 3).
Regarding claim 10, Matsushita discloses a plurality of bent optical fibers (Fig. 3), wherein the connecting member includes a glass plate having a plurality of through holes provided respectively in correspondence with the plurality of the bent optical fibers, or a fixing member (20 in Fig. 3) having a plurality of V-grooves (211 in Fig. 3) provided respectively in correspondence with the plurality of the bent optical fibers.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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(s) 4, 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsushita.
Matsushita discloses a bent optical fiber as discussed above regarding claim 1. However, it does not explicitly disclose the use of polarization maintaining fiber, which would necessarily have the polarization extinction ration of less than -15dB as claimed in claim 4, or at least two types of fiber with different cross-sectional structures as claimed in claim 11. However, the use of polarization maintaining fibers is well known and common in the art. One of ordinary skill in the art would readily recognize the advantage of using polarization maintaining fibers in the bent fiber device of Matsushita because the use of polarization maintaining fibers prevents random polarization changes of the transmitted light caused by bending, temperature variations, or mechanical stress on the fiber and ensures high optical performance of the optical connection components. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the present application to modify the device of Matsushita to use a polarization maintaining fiber, which would necessarily have the polarization extinction ration of less than -15dB as claimed in claim 4, or at least two types of fiber with different cross-sectional structures as claimed in claim 11 of the present application.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3 is 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: as discussed above, a bent optical fiber comprising a glass optical fiber, a stress portion, a resin coating, an exposed region, is known in the art. However, none of the prior art fairly teaches or suggests such a bent optical fiber wherein on a first cross-section perpendicular to the central axis at a boundary between the first non-bent region and the bent portion, a first symmetry axis, which defines an arrangement pattern of the core and the stress applying portion as a line-symmetry figure, intersects a rotation reference plane containing a center of the core located inside the exposed region at a first twist angle, on a second cross-section perpendicular to the central axis at a boundary between the second non-bent region and the bent portion, a second symmetry axis corresponding to the first symmetry axis, which defines the arrangement pattern of the core and the stress applying portion as a line-symmetry figure, intersects the rotation reference plane at a second twist angle, and a difference between the first twist angle and the second twist angle is less than 9°, as claimed in the present application. While the use of polarization maintaining fibers is known in the art, there is no clear reasons why or how one of ordinary skill in the art would modify the prior art devices to arrive at the above-mentioned features as claimed in the present application.
Claims 5-8 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: as discussed above, a bent optical fiber comprising a glass optical fiber, a stress portion, a resin coating, an exposed region, is known in the art. However, none of the prior art fairly teaches or suggests a method of manufacturing such a bent optical fiber comprising, inter alia, preparing an optical fiber having a core, a stress applying portion, cladding cover the core, resin coating provided on an outer peripheral surface, a step of removing a portion of the resin coating, bending a portion of an exposed region by heating a section away from the first end face, and cooling the section having been heated at a decreasing rate of 100 degrees Celsius/ second or more until a surface temperature of the section decrease from a maximum temperature at a time of heating to 1000 degrees Celsius or less, as claimed in the present application.
In addition, none of the prior art fairly teaches or suggests a method step wherein in the bending, before heating the section away from the first end face, the exposed region is installed in a state in which a Slow-axis, which serves as a vibration direction in which propagation velocity is minimum on a cross-section of the glass optical fiber orthogonal to the central axis, intersects a bending plane, which includes a center of the core and defines a bending direction, at an angle Θslow; and the section is heated along the bending plane so as to form a bent portion having a curvature of 0.1 (1/mm) or more while maintaining the angle Θslow, in the manner claimed in the present application.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SUNG H PAK whose telephone number is (571)272-2353. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 7AM- 5PM.
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/SUNG H PAK/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2874
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