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 § 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.
Claim(s) 1 and 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Okano (US20180006717A1).
Regarding claim 1, Okano discloses An optical transmission system (Fig. 1) including a plurality of nodes (Fig. 1; a plurality of nodes 101 to 104 is shown) connected to each other by optical transmission lines (Fig. 1; Para. 20; each of the node A 101 and the node B 102, the node B 102 and the node C 103, and the node C 103 and the node D 104 are respectively interconnected by an optical transmission line (e.g., an optical fiber)), the optical transmission system comprising:
a plurality of monitoring parts (Fig. 1; optical performance monitors (OPMs) 251 to 256) respectively provided in the plurality of nodes (Fig. 1; Para. 27; These OPMs 251 to 256 are provided to monitor the transmission characteristics of node and optical transmission line from the node A 101 to the node D 104) and each configured to collect signal information in time series at at least one signal collection point of a transmission end of the respective node (Fig. 1; Fig. 3; Para. 28; each of the OPMs 251 to 256 measures at least one of the OSNR value, the PMD value, the PDL value, the CD value and the nonlinear phase noise characteristic value. The variation of these values are shown in Fig. 3), a reception end of the respective node, and a location at or between devices in the respective node (Fig. 1; optical performance monitors (OPMs) 251 to 256 are place at the transmission end and the reception end as shown); and
an operation system (Fig. 1; the control device 110) configured to control the plurality of monitoring parts (Fig. 1; Para. 39; The transmission characteristic acquisition unit 233 of the control device 110 acquires values of the transmission characteristics. The transmission characteristic values are acquired from a plurality of OPMs 251 to 256 installed in the nodes A 101, B 102, C 103, and D 104), wherein the operation system is configured to perform:
a failure-suspected component extraction process (Fig. 1; Fig. 6; Para. 75; since the transmission characteristics are monitored using a plurality of OPMs, it is possible to identify a site of the cause of the variation of signal quality outside the allowable range of the optical transmission system) of, for a component including one or more of the plurality of nodes (Fig. 1; Fig. 5; Fig. 6; Fig. 8; Para. 74; When it is determined that the amplifier input/output level does not vary in the operation S506, the process proceeds to operation S507 in which it is estimated that the amplifier's ASE (Amplified Spontaneous Emission) is varying) and zero or more optical transmission lines between the one or more of the plurality of nodes (Fig. 1; Fig. 5; Fig. 6; Fig. 7; Para. 67; A graph 707 illustrates that the OPM 251 does not detect the variation of the PMD value, whereas the OPM 252 and the OPMs 253 to 255 in the downstream thereof detect the variation of the PMD value. Therefore, a section between the OPM 251 and the OPM 252 is specified in the operation S503. Therefore, in the operation S504, it can be specified that the section between the node A 101 and the node B 102 is a variation site), causing the one or more monitoring parts respectively provided in the one or more of the plurality of nodes to observe signal information on a reception end of the component (Fig. 1; Fig. 5; Fig. 6; Fig. 8; Para. 71; In the operation S506, the variation cause analysis unit 236 determines whether or not a level of amplifier input/output within the section specified in the operation S505 varies. In the example of FIG. 8, the variation cause analysis unit 236 determines the variation of an input/output level of each of the amplifiers 202 and 208 provided respectively with the OPMs 251 and 252) to extract the component as a failure-suspected component estimated to include a failure location (Fig. 1; Fig. 5; Fig. 6; Fig. 8; Para. 72; When it is determined that the amplifier input/output level is varying, the variation cause analysis unit 236 moves the process to operation S508 in which the level variation of the upstream side or the loss variation of an optical transmission line is estimated), and a failure location identification process of identifying the failure location in the extracted failure-suspected component by causing each of the one or more monitoring parts in the extracted failure-suspected component to observe a temporal change of the signal information at the at least one signal collection point in the respective node to detect an abnormality of the temporal change of the signal information (Fig. 1; Fig. 5; Fig. 6; Para. 75-76; since the transmission characteristics are monitored using a plurality of OPMs, it is possible to identify a site of the cause of the variation of signal quality outside the allowable range of the optical transmission system. In addition, even if a failure occurs, it is possible to identify a failure location so that devices and parts necessary for recovery may be prepared beforehand to shorten the time required for recovery).
Regarding claim 6, the present system teaches a device that necessarily perform this method claim in light of the rejection of claim 1.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Okano (US20180006717A1) in view of Kawahara et al. (US20220021449A1).
Regarding claim 2, Okano discloses The optical transmission system according to claim 1, as described and applied above, wherein the plurality of monitoring parts are each further configured to perform an optical signal-to-noise ratio of a collected signal (Fig. 1; Para. 28; each of the OPMs 251 to 256 measures at least one of the OSNR value, the PMD value, the PDL value, the CD value and the nonlinear phase noise characteristic value), and wherein the operation system is further configured to, in the failure location identification process, identify the failure location by causing each of the one or more monitoring parts in the extracted failure-suspected component to detect the abnormality of the temporal change (Fig. 1; Fig. 5; Fig. 6; Para. 75-76; since the transmission characteristics are monitored using a plurality of OPMs, it is possible to identify a site of the cause of the variation of signal quality outside the allowable range of the optical transmission system. In addition, even if a failure occurs, it is possible to identify a failure location so that devices and parts necessary for recovery may be prepared beforehand to shorten the time required for recovery) in at least one of: a signal output, a signal input, the waveform, and the optical signal-to-noise ratio (Fig. 1; Fig. 3; Para. 51; a failure may be predicted with high accuracy by monitoring a PDL value and an OSNR value at each node, specifying the PDL value variation and the OSNR value variation according to a polarization variation, and determining and correcting the influence of the variation on a BER value for each transceiver).
However, the present system does not expressly disclose perform optical spectrum analysis to acquire a waveform.
Kawahara et al. discloses perform optical spectrum analysis to acquire a waveform (Fig. 1; Fig. 2; Para. 96; Para. 53; The time-series data of Pre-FEC BER is increased at a predetermined timing, indicating that signal quality has degraded. The time-series data of the spectrum symmetry remains a predetermined value and does not vary. Thus, the time-series data of the correlation coefficient thereof decreases gradually from 1 after the predetermined timing; When the node controller 3 located at the end of the optical path 5 detects an abnormality or change in time-series data of a pre-forward error correction bit error rate (Pre-FEC BER) of the node 4 to be monitored (S10), it determines a degradation mode thereof based on a correlation analysis between the time-series data of the Pre-FEC BER and time-series data of analog information regarding photophysical properties to be monitored by digital signal processing (DSP) (S11)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add spectrum symmetry monitoring because monitoring spectrum symmetry in optical communication systems is essential because symmetry breaking directly indicates signal distortion and impairment.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5 and 7 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAI M LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-5870. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:5:30 PM.
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JAI M. LEE
Examiner
Art Unit 2634
/JAI M LEE/Examiner, Art Unit 2634
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