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 .
Election/Restrictions
Restriction to one of the following inventions is required under 35 U.S.C. 121:
I. Claims 1-8, drawn to a monitor for optical fiber systems, classified in G01M 11/3109 .
II. Claim 9-15, drawn to a method where the optical fiber system is coupled to a tubular string , classified in E21B 41/0007.
III. Claims 16-20, drawn to a method where the optical fiber system is inside a subsea well, classified in E21B 41/0007.
The inventions are independent or distinct, each from the other because:
Invention I is related to Inventions II and III as product and process of use. The inventions can be shown to be distinct if either or both of the following can be shown: (1) the process for using the product as claimed can be practiced with another materially different product or (2) the product as claimed can be used in a materially different process of using that product. See MPEP § 806.05(h). In the instant case the optical system of Inventions II and III can use ambient light rather than a light source inside a housing.
Inventions II and III are directed to related processed (or a species). The related inventions are distinct if: (1) the inventions as claimed are either not capable of use together or can have a materially different design, mode of operation, function, or effect; (2) the inventions do not overlap in scope, i.e., are mutually exclusive; and (3) the inventions as claimed are not obvious variants. See MPEP § 806.05(j). In the instant case, the inventions as claimed have different modes of operation where Invention II receives an optical signal from an optical fiber system that is coupled to a tubular string inside a subsea well. This is not found in Invention III. Invention III requires the optical fiber system to be inside a subsea well. This is not found in Invention II. Furthermore, the inventions as claimed do not encompass overlapping subject matter and there is nothing of record to show them to be obvious variants.
Restriction for examination purposes as indicated is proper because all the inventions listed in this action are independent or distinct for the reasons given above and there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required because one or more of the following reasons apply:
Each invention requires a different search query where the search for Invention I requires the search for each of the elements of the monitor that is not required for the search of Inventions II and III. In addition Invention I has a different classification search. Invention II requires a search for tubular string being run into a subsea well and Invention III requires a search for an optical fiber system to be inside a subsea well.
A telephone message was left for Jeffrey Frantz on March 9, 2026 to request an oral election to the above restriction requirement. On March 11, 2026, Kyle Miller, representing for Jeffry Frantz, left a return message electing Invention I.
Applicant is reminded that upon the cancelation of claims to a non-elected invention, the inventorship must be corrected in compliance with 37 CFR 1.48(a) if one or more of the currently named inventors is no longer an inventor of at least one claim remaining in the application. A request to correct inventorship under 37 CFR 1.48(a) must be accompanied by an application data sheet in accordance with 37 CFR 1.76 that identifies each inventor by his or her legal name and by the processing fee required under 37 CFR 1.17(i).
The examiner has required restriction between product or apparatus claims and process claims. Where applicant elects claims directed to the product/apparatus, and all product/apparatus claims are subsequently found allowable, withdrawn process claims that include all the limitations of the allowable product/apparatus claims should be considered for rejoinder. All claims directed to a nonelected process invention must include all the limitations of an allowable product/apparatus claim for that process invention to be rejoined.
In the event of rejoinder, the requirement for restriction between the product/apparatus claims and the rejoined process claims will be withdrawn, and the rejoined process claims will be fully examined for patentability in accordance with 37 CFR 1.104. Thus, to be allowable, the rejoined claims must meet all criteria for patentability including the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 101, 102, 103 and 112. Until all claims to the elected product/apparatus are found allowable, an otherwise proper restriction requirement between product/apparatus claims and process claims may be maintained. Withdrawn process claims that are not commensurate in scope with an allowable product/apparatus claim will not be rejoined. See MPEP § 821.04. Additionally, in order for rejoinder to occur, applicant is advised that the process claims should be amended during prosecution to require the limitations of the product/apparatus claims. Failure to do so may result in no rejoinder. Further, note that the prohibition against double patenting rejections of 35 U.S.C. 121 does not apply where the restriction requirement is withdrawn by the examiner before the patent issues. See MPEP § 804.01.
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.
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Claim(s) 1-4, 7, and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wilson et al. (US 2024/0142422).
Wilson shows a marinized distributed acoustic sensing system as follows:
1. A monitor (Fiber Optic Sensing system FOS 128, e.g. Fig. 1) for optical fiber systems, comprising:
a housing (Para. [0052]: "interrogator 128 may be housed within an atmospheric pressure chamber with or without temperature control to keep delicate electro-optical circuits dry and free of conductive sea water") configured for use
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in a subsea environment, the housing containing (See Figs. 7 and 8):
a light source (Para. [0041]: "Pulse generator 700 may be a laser");
an optical sensor (Para. [0053]: "photodetector assembly 718"); and
a controller (Para. [0053]: "Information handling system 146 may control the operation of pulse generator 700") coupled to the light source and to the optical sensor (Para. [0053]: "Information handling system 146 may control the operation of pulse generator 700 and photodetector assembly 718"); and
a power source (Para. [0057]:"Energy source 808 may be batteries");
2. The monitor of claim 1, wherein the controller comprises instructions that, when executed, cause a plurality of operations to be conducted (Para. [0037]: "Information handling system 146 may comprise random access memory (RAM), one or more processing resources such as a central processing unit (CPU) or hardware or software control logic,"), the plurality of operations comprising:
receiving a first data signal from the optical sensor (Para. [0056]: "…guide the light through optical fiber 716 to photodetector assembly 718. The sensed backscatter light 726 may be stored as data and transmitted to information handling system 146 for storage.");
determining, from the first data signal, a condition of an optical fiber system coupled to the monitor(Para. [0048]:"information handling system 146, which may process the electrical signal to identify strains within sensing fiber 724 "); and
sending a second data signal (Para. [0048]:"Information handling system 146, which may process the electrical signal to identify strains within sensing fiber 724 and/or convey the data to a display and/or store it in computer-readable media.").
3. The monitor of claim 2, wherein the determining of the condition of the optical fiber system coupled to the monitor includes performing optical time domain reflectometry (Para. [0050]: "FOS system 126, operating via optical time-domain reflectometry (OTDR). ").
4. The monitor of claim 2, wherein the second data signal includes a subset of information contained in the first data signal (Para. [0048]:"Information handling system 146, which may process the electrical signal to identify strains within sensing fiber 724 and/or convey the data to a display and/or store it in computer-readable media.").
7. The monitor of claim 2, wherein sending the second data signal includes transmitting the second data signal via electrical telemetry (Para. [0048]:"Information handling system 146, which may process the electrical signal to identify strains within sensing fiber 724 and/or convey the data to a display and/or store it in computer-readable media."), electromagnetic telemetry, acoustic telemetry, or optical telemetry.
8. The monitor of claim 2, further comprising a memory configured to store information contained in first data signal (Para. [0056]: "…guide the light through optical fiber 716 to photodetector assembly 718. The sensed backscatter light 726 may be stored as data and transmitted to information handling system 146 for storage.").
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) 5 and 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wilson as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of Rapp (US 2020/0049587).
Wilson shows all the elements as discussed for claim 2 operated as an optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR, see claim 3 above) but does not show the condition includes an attenuation coefficient or a quantification of signal loss as recited in claim 5.
Rapp shows the detection of change in reflected power in an optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) wherein an attenuation coefficient is obtained straightforwardly from the launch power into the fiber optic transmission system (Para. [0088]:"knowledge of the attenuation coefficient for the pumping signal in the first fiber 10 allows obtaining Ppump0 straightforwardly from the launch power into the fiber optic transmission system."), enabling to distinguish the cause of a change in reflected power (Abstract: "distinguishing whether a detected change in reflected power in an optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) … is caused by a an event causing actual attenuation or a change in a mode field diameter").
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to modify the information handling system 146 of Wilson to obtain an attenuation coefficient thereby distinguishing whether a detected change in reflected power in the OTDR and then convey the conclusion (i.e. a synopsis) so that the signal can be used or ignored.
Conclusion
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The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Drummon (WO 2004070167) shows a temperature system in a subsea well using OTDR:
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Hwa Andrew S Lee whose telephone number is (571)272-2419. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9am-5:30pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Michelle Iacoletti can be reached at (571) 270-5789. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Hwa Andrew Lee/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2877