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, 11, 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Frederiksen et al. (U.S. PGPUB 2018/0106901) in view of Brand et al. (U.S. PGPUB 2024/0334033).
Regarding claims 1, 11, 12, Frederiksen et al. disclose (Figs. 10) an optical depth sensing apparatus, comprising: a first light source (102a) configured to emit a first light beam having a first polarization state; a second source (102b) configured to emit a second light beam having a second polarization state, wherein an electric field direction of the first polarization state is perpendicular to an electric field direction of the second polarization state; a first sensing device (103b) configured to sense the first light beam; and a second sensing device (103a) configured to sense the second light beam, wherein the first light beam having the first polarization state is transmitted to the first sensing device, and the second light beam having the second polarization state is blocked, wherein the second light beam having the second polarization state is transmitted to the second sensing device, and the first light beam having the first polarization state is blocked. Frederiksen et al. do not specifically disclose the first and second sensing device comprising first and second metalenses and the metalenses block polarization states as claimed. Brand et al. teaches ([0020]) using metalenses to sort polarization states, where a specific polarization state is transmitted and others are reflected or absorbed or blocked. Brand et al. further discloses (Figs. 2a-2c) a plurality of first and second nanostructures that have non-circular symmetrical shapes as claimed. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing of the invention to provide metalenses in the apparatus of Frederiksen et al. to provide more compact polarization detection as taught, known and predictable.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-10, 13 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
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/THANH LUU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2878
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