DETAILED ACTION
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. This action is in response to application filed on 8/20/2024, in which claims 1 – 20 was presented for examination.
3. Claims 1 – 20 are pending in the application
Information Disclosure Statement
4. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 1/20/2025 and 10/22/2025 has been reviewed and entered into the record. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
5. Claims 1, 4 – 6, 9 – 10, 16, and 18 – 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1), in view of Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B).
As per claim 1, Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) discloses,
A photonic apparatus comprising: a propagating stage comprising a set of components arranged along and forming a single bidirectional optical pathway between a first terminal and a second terminal (para.[0047]; “The system operation and the optical propagation Path of the semiconductor package ……optical signal may be generated by the first photonic integrated circuit component …..the optical transmission along the plasmonic waveguide PWl may be bidirectional. In other words, the forgoing operation may be conducted in reverse order”).
the propagating stage configured to propagate a first optical signal along the optical pathway in a first direction from the first terminal to the second terminal to be controllably affected by the set of components in a first manner to produce an affected version of the first optical signal (para.[0047]; “the first photonic integrated
circuit component 100a sends the optical signal to the plasmonic waveguide PWl. Upon receiving the optical signal, the plasmonic waveguide PWl is able to create a path
for the optical signal to propagate … the plasmonic waveguide PWl allows resonance of photons and guides the optical signal to propagate through the path created by the pair of conductive features”).
and to propagate a second optical signal along the optical pathway in a second direction from the second terminal to the first terminal to be controllably affected by the set of components in a second manner different from the first manner to produce an affected version of the second optical signal (para.[0047]; “the first photonic integrated circuit component 100a sends the optical signal to the plasmonic waveguide PWl. Upon receiving the optical signal, the plasmonic waveguide PWl is able to create a path for the optical signal to propagate … the plasmonic waveguide PWl allows resonance of photons and guides the optical signal to propagate through the path created by the pair of conductive features”).
Liao does not specifically disclose wherein the set of components of the propagating stage is configured to produce a nonlinear relationship between the intermediate optical signal and the resultant optical signal, said nonlinear relationship providing a nonlinear activation function of the photonic apparatus operating to implement one or more reservoir computing nodes of a recurrent neural network.
However, Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B) in an analogous art discloses,
wherein the set of components of the propagating stage is configured to produce a nonlinear relationship between the intermediate optical signal and the resultant optical signal (pg.6 lines 25 – 28; “photonic neural network chip is used for receiving optical signals, preprocessing linear optical signals in the optical signals and generating first intermediate first intermediate optical signals….. photonic neural network chip and used for converting the nonlinear optical signal and the first intermediate optical signal in the optical signal into a first intermediate electrical signal”).
said nonlinear relationship providing a nonlinear activation function of the photonic apparatus operating to implement one or more reservoir computing nodes of a recurrent neural network (pg.6 lines 27 – 28; “photonic neural network chip and used for converting the nonlinear optical signal and the first intermediate optical signal in the optical signal into a first intermediate electrical signal”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate electrical processing module of the system of Zhao into photonic integrated circuit of the system of Liao to reduce the computation complexity and power consumption of an electrical signal processing module and increase the computation rate.
As per claim 4, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Zhao et al (CN 110505021 B) discloses,
wherein the amount of attenuation is controllably variable to implement a controlled variation of the nonlinear activation function, and wherein the controlled variation comprises a controlled variation in nonlinearity characteristics of the nonlinear activation function (pg.2 lines 14 - 15; “the first photoelectric conversion module is connected with the output end of the photonic neural network chip and is used for converting nonlinear optical signals in the optical signals and the first intermediate optical signals into first intermediate electric signals”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate electrical processing module of the system of Zhao into photonic integrated circuit of the system of Liao to reduce the computation complexity and power consumption of an electrical signal processing module and increase the computation rate.
As per claim 5, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) discloses,
wherein the set of components of the propagating stage includes a spiral waveguide operating as a nonlinear component contributing to providing said nonlinear activation function, wherein the spiral waveguide is a nonlinear waveguide (para.[0047]; “the optical input/output portion Pl of the first photonic integrated circuit component 100a sends the optical signal to the plasmonic waveguide PWl. Upon receiving the optical signal, the plasmonic waveguide PWl is able to create a path for the optical signal to propagate”).
As per claim 6, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) discloses,
wherein the set of components of the propagating stage further comprises a controllable gain element, and wherein the controllable gain element cooperates with additional members of the set of components to provide said nonlinear activation function as a controllable nonlinear activation function (para.[0047]; “the plasmonic waveguide PWl utilizes surface plasmon to confine the optical signal near the metal-dielectric interface … the plasmonic waveguide PWl allows resonance of photons and guides the optical signal to propagate through the path created by the pair of conductive features CF.”).
As per claim 9, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) discloses,
wherein the interface portion is an optical coupler having at least two inputs and at least two outputs (para.[0045]; “photonic integrated circuit component 100c are optically coupled to the plasmonic waveguide PWl. In some embodiments, the plasmonic waveguide PWl may include a conductive feature CF constituted by portions of the conductive patterns in the interconnection structure 114a, portions of the conductors 118a, 218a, portions of the conductive patterns in the interconnection structure 214a, portions of the through semiconductor vias 212a”).
As per claim 10, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) discloses,
further comprising a plurality of propagating stages including the propagating stage, each of the plurality of propagating stages having a same structure and configuration as the propagating stage (para.[0078]; “the propagation path created by the plasmonic waveguide PW 4 may be short. As such, the signal loss during transmission may be reduced and higher data transfer rate may be achieved”).
As per claim 16, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated and further Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) discloses,
wherein the plurality of propagating stages are configured in a series arrangement, a parallel arrangement, or a series-parallel arrangement (para.[0078]; “the propagation path created by the plasmonic waveguide PW 4 may be short. As such, the signal loss during transmission may be reduced and higher data transfer rate may be achieved”).
As per claim 18, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) discloses,
wherein said set of components of the propagating stage includes a controllable bi-directional amplifier (para.[0047]; “the optical transmission along the plasmonic waveguide PWl may be bidirectional. In other words, the forgoing operation may be conducted in reverse order”).
As per claim 19, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Zhao et al (CN 110505021 B) discloses,
wherein said set of components of the propagating stage includes one or more of: a spiral waveguide with nonlinear optical characteristics; a waveguide with nonlinear characteristics; a microring resonator with nonlinear characteristics; a photonic crystal optical fiber or waveguide with nonlinear characteristics; and an optical fiber with nonlinear characteristics (pg.5 lines 33 – 34; “the photonic neural network chip includes any one of a mach-zehnder interferometer, a multimode interferometer, a direct coupler, a photonic crystal, and a micro-ring resonator”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate electrical processing module of the system of Zhao into photonic integrated circuit of the system of Liao to reduce the computation complexity and power consumption of an electrical signal processing module and increase the computation rate.
6. Claims 2, 12 – 15 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1), in view of Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B), and further in view of Bogaerts et al (US 2023/0003939 A1).
As per claim 2, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B) discloses,
further comprising: an input terminal configured to receive an optical input signal and an interface portion configured to: receive an intermediate optical signal which comprises the optical input signal (pg.6 lines 25 – 27; “photonic neural network chip is used for receiving optical signals, preprocessing linear optical signals in the optical signals and generating first intermediate first intermediate optical signals”).
provide, to the first terminal of the propagating stage, the first optical signal as a first portion of the intermediate optical signal; provide, to the second terminal of the propagating stage, the second optical signal as a second portion of the intermediate optical signal (pg.9 lines 16 – 17; “receiving the optical signals, preprocessing the linear optical signals in the optical signals, and generating first intermediate optical signals”).
Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) and Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B) does not specifically disclose receive the affected version of the first optical signal from the second terminal of the propagating stage; receive the affected version of the second optical signal from the first terminal of the propagating stage and combine, via optical interference, the affected version of the first optical signal with the affected version of the second optical signal to form a resultant optical signal.
However, Bogaerts et al (US 2023/0003939 A1) in an analogous art discloses,
receive the affected version of the first optical signal from the second terminal of the propagating stage; receive the affected version of the second optical signal from the first terminal of the propagating stage (para.[0072]; “allows optical signals to be propagated together to a wavelength-separating and capturing element and response signals to propagated together back from the wavelength separating and capturing element. Thus, a combined output signal from the wavelength-splitting/combining component may be provided to the wavelength-separating and capturing element”).
and combine, via optical interference, the affected version of the first optical signal with the affected version of the second optical signal to form a resultant optical signal (para.[0072]; “Thus, a combined output signal from the wavelength-splitting/combining component may be provided to the wavelength-separating and capturing element”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate wavelength division multiplexing of the system of Bogaerts into electrical processing module of the system of Zhao to reduce time needed to scan the scene and reduce the amount of time needed to process the signal.
As per claim 12, the rejection of claim 11 is incorporated, Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) and Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B) does not specifically disclose wherein the interface portion is configured to combine outputs of each of said at least two of the plurality of propagating stages together to produce the resultant signal.
However, Bogaerts et al (US 2023/0003939 A1) in an analogous art discloses,
wherein the interface portion is configured to combine outputs of each of said at least two of the plurality of propagating stages together to produce the resultant signal (para.[0022]; “The wavelength-splitting/combining component is configured to propagate light incident on the first side to be output on the second side”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate wavelength division multiplexing of the system of Bogaerts into electrical processing module of the system of Zhao to reduce time needed to scan the scene and reduce the amount of time needed to process the signals.
As per claim 13, the rejection of claim 12 is incorporated and further Bogaerts et al (US 2023/0003939 A1) discloses,
wherein different respective outputs of said at least two of the plurality of propagating stages are received at different times due to different respective delays of said at least two of the plurality of propagating stages, and wherein said combining outputs comprises a temporal concatenation of the different respective outputs of said at least two of the plurality of propagating stages (para.[0072]; “allows optical signals to be propagated together to a wavelength-separating and capturing element and response signals to propagated together back from the wavelength separating and capturing element. Thus, a combined output signal from the wavelength-splitting/combining component may be provided to the wavelength-separating and capturing element”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate wavelength division multiplexing of the system of Bogaerts into electrical processing module of the system of Zhao to reduce time needed to scan the scene and reduce the amount of time needed to process the signals.
As per claim 14, the rejection of claim 12 is incorporated and further Bogaerts et al (US 2023/0003939 A1) discloses,
wherein said combining outputs comprises a wavelength division multiplexing of the different respective outputs (para.[0006]; “a multiplexer is needed for combining the optical signals” and para.[0007]; “a multiplexer to combine a plurality of optical signals of different wavelengths input at the second side to a single optical signal output at the first side”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate wavelength division multiplexing of the system of Bogaerts into electrical processing module of the system of Zhao to reduce time needed to scan the scene and reduce the amount of time needed to process the signals.
As per claim 15, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated, Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) and Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B) does not specifically disclose wherein the plurality of propagating stages includes a second propagating stage operatively coupled to the propagating stage in a series arrangement.
However, Bogaerts et al (US 2023/0003939 A1) in an analogous art discloses,
wherein the plurality of propagating stages includes a second propagating stage operatively coupled to the propagating stage in a series arrangement (para.[0072]; “optical signals to be propagated together to a wavelength-separating and capturing element and response signals to propagated together back from the wavelength separating and capturing element”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate wavelength division multiplexing of the system of Bogaerts into electrical processing module of the system of Zhao to reduce time needed to scan the scene and reduce the amount of time needed to process the signals.
As per claim 17, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) and Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B) does not specifically disclose wherein the optical input signal comprises multiple sub-signals each limited to a different respective wavelength band, the apparatus configured to process the multiple sub-signals in parallel via wavelength division multiplexing.
However, Bogaerts et al (US 2023/0003939 A1) in an analogous art discloses,
wherein the optical input signal comprises multiple sub-signals each limited to a different respective wavelength band, the apparatus configured to process the multiple sub-signals in parallel via wavelength division multiplexing (para.[0007]; “a multiplexer to combine a plurality of optical signals of different wavelengths input at the second side to a single optical signal output at the first side”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate wavelength division multiplexing of the system of Bogaerts into electrical processing module of the system of Zhao to reduce time needed to scan the scene and reduce the amount of time needed to process the signals.
7. Claims 7 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1), in view of Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B), and further in view of Apostolos et al (Photonic machine learning implementation for signal recovery in optical communications).
As per claim 7, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) and Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B) does not specifically disclose wherein the feed portion establishes a first optical signal loop, the propagating stage establishes one or more second optical signal loops coupled to the first optical signal loop, and the first optical signal loop and the one or more second optical signal loops are cooperatively configured to provide a delayed feedback facilitating implementation of said reservoir computing nodes.
However, Apostolos et al (Photonic machine learning implementation for signal recovery in optical communications) in an analogous art discloses,
wherein the feed portion establishes a first optical signal loop, the propagating stage establishes one or more second optical signal loops coupled to the first optical signal loop, and the first optical signal loop and the one or more second optical signal loops are cooperatively configured to provide a delayed feedback facilitating implementation of said reservoir computing nodes (pg.2 lines 25 – 28; “The reservoir is described as a recurrent network with randomly connected nonlinear nodes. Its role is to nonlinearly transform the input and, at the same time, to generate a mapping of the input onto a high-dimensional state space. Recently it was shown D that a single nonlinear element with time-delayed feedback can emulate a recurrent network by defining multiple nodes within the feedback loop with delay time”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate photonic reservoir computing scheme of the system of Apostolos into electrical processing module of the system of Zhao to reduce processing time of high-speed signals.
As per claim 11, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated, Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) and Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B) does not specifically disclose wherein the interface portion is configured to operatively couple the feed portion to at least two of the plurality of propagating stages in a same manner as the interface portion operatively couples the feed portion to the propagating stage to implement a parallel arrangement.
However, Apostolos et al (Photonic machine learning implementation for signal recovery in optical communications) in an analogous art discloses,
wherein the interface portion is configured to operatively couple the feed portion to at least two of the plurality of propagating stages in a same manner as the interface portion operatively couples the feed portion to the propagating stage to implement a parallel arrangement (pg.2 lines 25 – 28; “The reservoir is described as a recurrent network with randomly connected nonlinear nodes. Its role is to nonlinearly transform the input and, at the same time, to generate a mapping of the input onto a high-dimensional state space. Recently it was shown D that a single nonlinear element with time-delayed feedback can emulate a recurrent network by defining multiple nodes within the feedback loop with delay time”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate photonic reservoir computing scheme of the system of Apostolos into electrical processing module of the system of Zhao to reduce processing time of high-speed signals.
8. Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1), in view of Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B), and further in view of Shu et al (US 2009/0290827 A1).
As per claim 8, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, Liao et al (US 2020/0098736 A1) and Zhao et al (US CN 110505021 B) does not specifically disclose wherein the propagating stage and the interface portion together form a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror or a nonlinear optical loop mirror.
However, Shu et al (US 2009/0290827 A1) in an analogous art discloses,
wherein the propagating stage and the interface portion together form a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror or a nonlinear optical loop mirror (para.[0004]; “nonlinear optical loop mirror may comprise: an optical coupler which includes a first optical path and a second optical path coupled to each other”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to incorporate nonlinear optical loop mirror configuration of the Shu into electrical processing module of the system of Zhao to improve the speed of processing the received signal.
Allowable Subject Matter
9. 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.
Claim 20 is allowed.
The prior art of record does not disclose the limitation of “a feed portion configured to: receive the optical input signal from the input terminal; receive a portion of the resultant optical signal; using a controllably variable amount of attenuation, produce an attenuated version of said portion of the resultant optical signal; and combine the optical input signal with the attenuated version of said portion of the resultant optical signal to generate the intermediate optical signal; and an output terminal configured to provide another portion of the resultant optical signal”.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
TITLE: Adaptable Optical Neural Network System, US 2021/0097378 A1 authors: Rodrigues et al. (see paragraph 0063).
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/AUGUSTINE K. OBISESAN/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2156
9/14/2026
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