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 .
Response to Arguments
In this Office action, the rejection of claims 1, 9, and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) has been withdrawn considering the amendment to the claims.
Applicant argues that the grounds of rejection under 102 was improper because the rejection stated “obvious to try.” The Examiner believes the rejection was properly made since the grounds of rejection solely relied on Sakamoto’s teaching and all the facts relied upon was within the four corners of Sakamoto.
Applicant argues 48.8 µm is outside the claimed range of 34 ≤ Λ ≤ 46. The Examiner agrees; however, the grounds of rejection did not rely on 48.8 µm being in the claimed range.
Applicant argues “if r1 and r2 were the core diameters as the examiner mentioned” then the claimed conditions would not be met. In response, the Examiner misstated what Sakamoto showed. Sakamoto shows r1 (i.e. radius) is 12.5 µm in Table 1, not that Sakamoto shows the diameter is 12.5 µm.
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, 9, and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sakamoto et al. ("Spatial Density and Splicing Characteristic Optimized Few-Mode Multi-Core Fiber"; submitted in IDS of 11/25/2024).
Regarding claim 1, Sakamoto (see, in particular, page 4492, left column, lines 15-39, fig. 1-5, tables 1 and 2, etc.) describes a multicore optical fiber comprising:
a plurality of cores extending along the center axis (see Fig.5; "10-mode 12-core fiber"), and
a common cladding surrounding each of the plurality of cores (see Fig. 5; "the cladding diameter, 217 µm"),
wherein a first core having a radius
a
(µm) and a second core having a radius
b
(µm) satisfy an adjacent relationship in which a center-to-center distance Λ (µm) is shortest among the plurality of cores, and the first core and the second core satisfy a relationship below.
34 ≤ Λ ≤ 46
0.6375 < (
a
+
b
)/Λ < 0.8625
In an exemplary fiber in Table 1, a 15-mode fiber each core has a radius of 12.5 µm and a core pitch of 48.8 µm. Sakamoto shows the desire to make the cladding diameter small in order to improve mechanical reliability (p. 4492, column 2, lines 3-5) since Sakamoto states that the 217 µm cladding diameter of the 10-mode is "sufficiently" below the maximum 250 µm. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to try to reduce the cladding diameter, and thus the core pitch less than e.g., 37 µm, in order to improve the mechanical reliability of the fiber more than "sufficient" and improve the bending radius.
With
a
=
12.5
µ
m
,
b
=
12.5
µ
m
s
i
n
c
e
e
a
c
h
c
o
r
e
h
a
s
t
h
e
s
a
m
e
r
a
d
i
u
s
and, Λ
=
37 µm, (
a
+
b
)/Λ
=
0.6757. Accordingly the claimed conditions of claims 1 and 10 are met.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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
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