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 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yu CN 107015173 in view of paper of S. Forstner, “Cavity Optomechanical Magnetometer”, March 21, 2012 hereafter Forstner in further view of paper of ASEEL MAHMOOD, “Magnetic-field sensor based on whispering gallery modes in a photonic crystal fiber
infiltrated with magnetic fluid”, September, 2015 hereafter Mahmood.
With respect to claim 1, Yu teaches an apparatus comprising:
a light source (fig 1, 1) (pg. 3, ¶ 8);
an optical fiber (fig 1, 5), having a tapered region “optical taper coupling hollow WGM”, coupled to said light source;
a resonator (fig 1, 6) in contact with a magnetostrictive material (fig 1, 7) (pg. 3, ¶ 8); and
a polarization controller (fig 1, 4) that controls polarization of light in said tapered region.
Yu does not teach a stretchable microresonator in contact with tapered region of fiber and in contact with a magnetostrictive material.
Forstner, in the same field of endeavor as Yu of WGM magnetometers, teaches a stretchable microresonator (fig 1, gray) in contact which a magnetostrictive material (fig 1, light blue) (pg. 4, ¶ 4, lines 1-3 & 7-8).
Forstner does not teach the microresonator is in contact with tapered region of fiber.
Mahmood, in the same field of endeavor as Yu of WGM resonators, teaches a microresonator is in contact with a tapered region of a fiber (pg. 4,984, col 1, ¶ 3, lines 3-7). At the time prior to the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Forstner’s microresonator with Yu’s tapered fiber as a low weight compact means for providing navigation measurements in remote operations (pg. 4,983, col 1, ¶ 1 Mahmood).
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yu CN 107015173 in view of paper of S. Forstner, “Cavity Optomechanical Magnetometer”, March 21, 2012 hereafter Forstner in further view of paper of ASEEL MAHMOOD, “Magnetic-field sensor based on whispering gallery modes in a photonic crystal fiber
infiltrated with magnetic fluid”, September, 2015 hereafter Mahmood in view of HAN CN 108760117 in further view of DELAMARE EP 2592429.
With respect to claim 4 according to claim 1, the combination does not teach a permanent magnetic field is used to increase a sensitivity of said microresonator by increasing a magnetostriction coefficient of said magnetostrictive material.
Han, in the same field endeavor as Yu of the magnetostriction, teaches an increased external magnetic field increases the magnetostrictive coefficient of a magnetostrictive material to a maximum value (pg.1, ¶ 1, lines 6-10).
Han does not teach increasing a sensitivity of said microresonator.
Delamare, in the same field endeavor as Yu of magnetic field sensors, teaches a magnetic moment of a magnetic field source parallel or perpendicular to a stretching direction according to a coefficient value of magnetostriction increases the sensitivity of a sensor (pg. 1, ¶ 4). Delamare further teaches the field is created by a permanent magnet. Examiner notes the field is understood to be a permanent magnetic field since it is created internally from the magnet. At the time prior to the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to try the known technique of increasing the external electric field applied to the combination’s magnetic strictive material and resonator for more accurate measurements.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-6 are allowed. Claims 2 & 3 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims or to include the limitation(s) and any intervening claims into the base claim. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
As to claim 2, the prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious “a
vector magnetometer based on a whispering gallery mode (WGM) double-tailed microsphere (DTM), configured to detect strain induced on said magnetostrictive material in response to a change in the ambient magnetic field”, in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 2.
As to claim 3, the prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious “an arm coupled between said stretchable resonator and said magnetostrictive material”, in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 3.
As to claim 5, the prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious “connecting an arm to said static stage or to an edge of said magnetostrictive material, avoiding any contact between said arm and a central region of said magnetostrictive material; connecting one of the fiber tails of a stretchable microresonator to an edge of said arm; connecting one of the fiber tails of said microresonator to the edge of said magnetostrictive material; and bringing a tapered fiber in contact with said microresonator to achieve optical coupling”, in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 5.
Conclusion
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/MAURICE C SMITH/Examiner, Art Unit 2877
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