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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Priority
The Examiner recognizes Foreign Priority to JP2022-117784, with a filing date of 07/25/2022
Information Disclosure Statement (IDS)
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 07/11/2024, 10/23/2025 and 01/29/2026 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner. Please refer to applicant’s copy of the 1449 herewith.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claim 8 in the reply filed on 03/12/2026 is acknowledged. Claims 1-7 is/are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected optical fiber production device, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in reply filed on 03/12/2026.
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.
(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) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated USPGPUB 20100319405A1 by Okada (herein “Okada”)
Regarding Claim 8 – Okada teaches,
An optical fiber production method of forming an optical fiber
by coating, with a resin, a glass fiber drawn from a glass base material in a drawing furnace;
[0012] lines 1-6, [0050], lines 3-6, “An optical fiber manufacturing device of an exemplary
embodiment includes: a bare optical fiber-forming unit that forms a bare optical fiber by pulling
an optical fiber preform; a coating unit that forms an optical fiber by coating the bare optical
fiber outputted from the bare optical fiber-forming unit with a coating layer, “The optical fiber
manufacturing device 10 includes a heating furnace 14 (bare optical fiber-forming unit), a cooler
16, a coating unit 18, a resin-curing unit 20, a pulley 22 (first direction-converter)…”
the optical fiber production method comprising,
guiding the optical fiber by bringing the optical fiber into contact, at only one point, with a
bottom roller when viewed in a cross section of the optical fiber in contact with the bottom
roller; [0053], FIG. 2, “The pulley 22 is arranged such that its axis of rotation Ax1 and the
traveling direction of the optical fiber 32 are skew (in other words, such that they are mutually
perpendicular when seen in the perspective view of FIG. 2). The width W of the outer peripheral
face 26 of the pulley 22 is approximately 10 mm…”. See Annotated FIG. 2 below:
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the bottom roller being provided directly below the drawing furnace and configured to change
a running direction of the optical fiber; [0012], lines 6-9, [0055], lines 4-8, [0022], FIG. 8,“a first
direction-converter, which is a solid body that comes into contact with the optical fiber
outputted from the coating unit and thereby changing its traveling direction”, “the contact angle
Ɵ between the optical fiber 32 and the pulley 22 (a roller) , which is the first solid body that
changes the traveling direction of the optical fiber 32 after it has been extracted from the resin-
curing unit 20, is in the range of about 10.degree. to 80.degree”, “The rotating body (roller)
constituting the first direction-converter…”, FIG. 8 illustrates first direction converter pulley 22
aligned directly below the drawing furnace.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER PAUL DAIGLER whose telephone number is (571)272-1066. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7:30-4:30 CT.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Alison Hindenlang can be reached on 571-270-7001. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHRISTOPHER PAUL DAIGLER/ Examiner, Art Unit 1741
/ALISON L HINDENLANG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1741