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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 5/04/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's remarks filed 4/01/2026 have been fully considered.
Regarding the prior drawing objections, Applicant’s amendments overcome all prior objections.
Regarding the prior art rejection of claim 1, in paragraph 3 of page 9 through paragraph 3 of page 11 of Applicant’s Remarks, Applicant’s arguments are directed to that the prior art fails to disclose, teach, or suggest the amended limitations of amended claim 1. Applicant includes arguments directed to that Ouellette individually does not teach or suggest a “control network” and a “monitoring network” and does not teach the required architecture of two functionally distinct networks that share an optical fiber (para 2 of page 10 – para 1 of page 11 of Applicant’s Remarks).
In response to applicant’s arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
The arguments directed to that the prior art fails to disclose, teach, or suggest the amended limitations of amended claim 1 are not persuasive because each limitation is mapped to the same prior art of the previous office action. Please see mapping of amended limitations to prior art below for details.
Claim Interpretation
The previous claim interpretation(s) (identified in the office action mailed on 9/15/2025) made under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) regarding the term(s) “monitoring element” in claims 2 and 16 is/are maintained.
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, 2, 14, 16, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20100124498 A1 (hereinafter Kabatzke) in view of US 9810556 B2 (Ouellette) as evidenced by non-patent literature “5 Reasons Your IT Tech Will Recommend Fiber Over Copper” (hereinafter Pilotfiber) and as evidenced by non-patent literature “Multiplexer” (hereinafter Wikipedia).
Examiner’s note: All mapping below (references made to reference characters, figures, paragraphs, etc.) is with regard to the base reference Kabatzke unless otherwise noted.
Regarding claim 1, Kabatzke discloses:
A wind turbine (Fig 1) comprising:
a nacelle (16; Fig 1);
a rotor (10 combined with 12 and 14; Fig 1) rotationally mounted to the nacelle, the rotor comprising a hub (12; Fig 1), and blades (10; Fig 1) extending from the hub;
a control network (monitoring-and communication devices 32 and 34 combined with associated elements such as drive control units 62 and control device 18; Figs 1, 2, 4) comprising control-network nodes connected by a first network,
the control-network nodes comprising one or more first control-network nodes (e.g. at drive control units 62) in the rotor (para 0050) and one or more second control-network nodes in the nacelle (e.g. at control device 18; para 0039: “control device 18 of the wind energy plant is located in the tower or in the nacelle”);
a monitoring network (monitoring-and communication devices 32 and 34 combined with associated monitors/sensors such as monitoring devices 68 and sensors 46; Figs 1, 2, 4) functionally separate from the control network (the control network and the monitoring network each comprise separate components which perform separate functions, i.e. components of the monitoring network are separate in function from components of the control network),
the monitoring network comprising monitoring-network nodes connected by a second network (monitoring-and communication devices 32 and 34 combined with associated monitors/sensors such as monitoring devices 68 and sensors 46; Figs 1, 2, 4),
the monitoring-network nodes comprising one or more first monitoring-network nodes (e.g. at monitoring device 68) in the rotor and one or more second monitoring-network nodes in the nacelle (e.g. at sensors 46);
Kabatzke also discloses:
-The first sending and receiving devices 22 are connected to the second sending and receiving devices 26 via wireless network connection 76 (para 0042).
-monitoring- and communication device 32 (in the nacelle 16) and monitoring- and communication device 34 (in the hub 12) are connected by an electric connection 56 comprising a slip ring as an alternative to the wireless network connection 76 (para 0047). The electric connection 56 "is only used for the exchange of status messages between the two monitoring- and communication devices in the regular operation" and "for data communication when the radio link breaks down" (para 0016).
Kabatzke may not explicitly disclose:
an optical fibre which is shared by the first and second networks and extends between the nacelle and the rotor;
a first wavelength division multiplexer/demultiplexer (WDMD) in the rotor;
and a second WDMD in the nacelle, wherein:
the first WDMD is configured to receive nacelle-bound light and multiplex the nacelle-bound light onto the optical fibre;
the first WDMD is configured to demultiplex rotor-bound light from the optical fibre and route the rotor-bound light to one of the control network and the monitoring network based on a wavelength of the rotor-bound light;
the second WDMD is configured to demultiplex the nacelle-bound light from the optical fibre and route the nacelle-bound light to one of the control network and the monitoring network based on a wavelength of the nacelle-bound light;
and the second WDMD is configured to multiplex the rotor-bound light onto the optical fibre.
However, Ouellette, in the same field of endeavor, networks applicable to wind turbines, teaches:
an optical fibre (main optical fiber 30 at fiber optic rotary joint 70 in Fig 2A) which is shared by the first and second networks and extends between the nacelle and the rotor (col 14 lines 56-64 identify the fiber optic rotary joint 70 allows the sensors 50 to exist on a rotor and the modules (10; Fig 1A, Fig 2A) to exist on a stator; i.e. the right side of Fig 2A corresponds to a rotor and the left side corresponds to a stator);
a first wavelength division multiplexer/demultiplexer (WDMD) (65; Fig 2A) in the rotor;
and a second WDMD (60; Fig 2A) in the nacelle, wherein:
(note, col 10 lines 42-46: multiplexers 60, 65 of Fig 2A exist between the optical fiber coupler 15 of Fig 1A and the sensor arrays 55)
the first WDMD (65) is configured to receive nacelle-bound light and multiplex the nacelle-bound light onto the optical fibre (abstract, col 11 line 26: pulses from the sensors 50 are directed onto a photodetector 20 in Fig 1B for processing; thus it is inherent that multiplexer 65 multiplexes signals from sensors 50/55 onto the optical fiber);
the first WDMD (65) is configured to demultiplex rotor-bound light from the optical fibre and route the rotor-bound light to one of the control network and the monitoring network based on a wavelength of the rotor-bound light (col 9 line 44: “multiplexers 65 that can separate the outputs of the multiple modules 10 from the main optical fiber 30 into separate branches of optical fiber”; col 1 line 54: “Wavelength Division Multiplexing, or WDM”);
the second WDMD (60) is configured to demultiplex the nacelle-bound light from the optical fibre and route the nacelle-bound light to one of the control network and the monitoring network based on a wavelength of the nacelle-bound light (in Fig 2A multiplexer 60 is identified with a “demux” configuration);
and the second WDMD (60) is configured to multiplex the rotor-bound light onto the optical fibre (col 14 line 24-34: an optical wavelength division multiplexer 60 combining the outputs of the multiple modules 10 into a single optical fiber 30).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Kabatzke to include Ouellette’s teachings as described above, replacing Kabatzke’s electric connection 56 comprising a slip ring with Ouellette’s optical fiber and fiber optic rotary joint and two multiplexers, in order to improve the single cable connection with regard to resiliency and reliability (as evidenced by Pilotfiber).
The modification above results in the following limitations:
the nacelle-bound light comprising control-network light at a first wavelength (see above wherein Kabatzke’s control network comprises nodes in the rotor and Ouellette’s WDMDs transmit the corresponding light nacelle-bound) and monitoring-network light at a second wavelength (see above wherein Kabatzke’s monitoring network comprises nodes in the rotor and Ouellette’s WDMDs transmit the corresponding light nacelle -bound) different from the first wavelength (this is what wavelength division multiplexers/demultiplexers do, integrate/de-integrate signals of various wavelengths onto/from one optical fiber, as generally disclosed by Ouellette throughout e.g. col 9 line 44 and col 1 line 54 and col 14 line 24-34 and Fig 2A wherein multiplexer 60 is identified with a “demux” configuration, and as one having ordinary skill in the art would know as evidenced by for example Wikipedia page 1-2);
the rotor-bound light comprising control- network light at a third wavelength (see above wherein Kabatzke’s control network comprises nodes in the nacelle and Ouellette’s WDMDs transmit the corresponding light rotor-bound) and monitoring-network light at a fourth wavelength (see above wherein Kabatzke’s monitoring network comprises nodes in the nacelle and Ouellette’s WDMDs transmit the corresponding light rotor-bound) different from the third wavelength (this is what wavelength division multiplexers/demultiplexers do, integrate/de-integrate signals of various wavelengths onto/from one optical fiber, as generally disclosed by Ouellette throughout e.g. col 9 line 44 and col 1 line 54 and col 14 line 24-34 and Fig 2A wherein multiplexer 60 is identified with a “demux” configuration, and as one having ordinary skill in the art would know as evidenced by for example Wikipedia page 1-2),
Regarding claim 2, Kabatzke, as modified above, discloses:
at least one of the one or more first monitoring-network nodes and at least one of the one or more second monitoring-network nodes each comprise a monitoring element (Kabatzke monitoring device 68 and sensors 46) configured to monitor the wind turbine and generate monitoring data.
Examiner’s Note:
Claim 14 is a method claim reciting substantially the same limitations as the product claim 1, thus is similarly rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 over the prior art (see prior art rejections of claim 1 above).
Claim 16 (depending from independent claim 14) is entirely substantially similar to claim 2 (depending from independent claim 1), thus is similarly rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 over the prior art (see prior art rejections of claim 2 above).
The corresponding prior art rejections for claims 14, 16 are not explicitly written out in order to save multiple pages worth of redundant writing which entirely corresponds to the disclosures, teachings, and rejections already discussed in detail above for claims 1-2 respectively.
Regarding claim 20, Kabatzke, as modified above, discloses:
the first WDMD (Ouellette 65; Fig 2A) is disposed in the rotor, and the second WDMD (Ouellette 60; Fig 2A) is disposed in the nacelle (see claim 1, wherein this limitation is addressed in the claim 1 rejection, and claim 14 is a method claim reciting substantially the same limitations as the product claim 1, and claim 20 depends from claim 14, thus is similarly rejected).
Claim(s) 3, 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kabatzke in view of Ouellette as evidenced by Pilotfiber as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of US 20120143537 A1 (Nielsen).
Regarding claim 3, Kabatzke, as modified above, discloses all claim limitations (see above) except:
the second network is configured to receive the monitoring data and communicate the monitoring data to a substation remote from the wind turbine.
However, Nielsen, in the same field of endeavor, wind turbines, teaches:
In Fig 1 a substation 12, wherein “The substation may comprise any relevant components (not shown in FIG. 1) in order to monitor and control the wind turbines 10” (para 0046).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Kabatzke to include Nielsen’s teachings as described above, having the second network configured to receive the monitoring data and communicate the monitoring data to a substation remote from the wind turbine, “in order to monitor and control the wind turbines 10” (para 0046).
Examiner’s Note:
Claim 17 (depending from independent claim 14) is entirely substantially similar to claim 3 (depending from independent claim 1), thus is similarly rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 over the prior art (see prior art rejections of claim 3 above).
The corresponding prior art rejections for claims 17 are not explicitly written out in order to save multiple pages worth of redundant writing which entirely corresponds to the disclosures, teachings, and rejections already discussed in detail above for claims 3 respectively.
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kabatzke in view of Ouellette as evidenced by Pilotfiber and in view of non-patent literature “What’s the Difference Between Multimode and Single-Mode Fibre Optic Cable?” (hereinafter BlackBox).
Regarding claim 8, Kabatzke, as modified above, discloses all claim limitations (see above) except:
the optical fibre is a multi-mode optical fibre.
However, BlackBox, in the same field of endeavor, fibre optics, teaches:
Within the sections comparing multimode and single mode fibres (particularly the sections “Multimode vs. Single-Mode Fibre Pricing” and “Conclusion: Multimode vs. Single-Mode Fibre Cable”), that choosing multimode or single mode fibers is merely a design choice (“Choosing the right fibre cable comes down to what you need for your specific application.”) and that “multimode fibre systems are much cheaper than single-mode fibre systems”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Kabatzke to include BlackBox’s teachings as described above, having the optical fibre be a multi-mode optical fibre, in order to choose a multimode fibre system for the apparatus which may be according to the NPL disclosure relatively cheaper (“multimode fibre systems are much cheaper than single-mode fibre systems”).
Also, Applicant’s own disclosure supports that choosing multimode or single mode fibers is merely a design choice as the disclosure only suggests choosing either option (e.g., bottom of page 2: “Optionally the optical fibre is a multi-mode optical fibre.”) without disclosing in any way that this choice is critical to the invention.
Conclusion
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/Art Golik/Examiner, Art Unit 3745
/COURTNEY D HEINLE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3745
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