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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 12/20/2024 is/are being considered by the Examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 2, the claim refers to “the detected angle error” and “the angle error”. It is unclear if they are supposed to refer to two separate angle errors or a same angle error as the previous recitation in claim 1 does not give clarity to this issue. It is also unclear how a repeated calculation of a deviation in orthogonality would be achieved by “using the detected angle error” as claimed. Each separate calculation would seem to use a respective newly detected angle error each time a new deviation is calculated. Finally, it is unclear if the angle itself is converging to a specific value, or if the setting value is updated so convergence to a perfectly orthogonality condition is met.
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.
Claim(s) 1 and 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun et al, U.S. Patent No. 6,917,031 in view of Agazzi et al, U.S. Publication No. 2018/0041287.
Regarding claim 1, Sun teaches an optical receiver (see Sun Figure 1) comprising:
an acquirer (see Figure 1, DSP 28) that acquires a signal indicating an in-phase component and a signal indicating a quadrature component for each of polarized waves of received light (see column 4, “Using the first photodetector 22 as a square law mixing device it is possible to recover a first baseband electrical signal that is proportional to I.sub.X. The second output of the first 90 degree optical hybrid 14 contains signal components (I.sub.X,Q.sub.X)+(90 degree shifted LO). The second photodetector 30 is used similarly to the first photodetector 22 to recover a second baseband electrical signal that is proportional to Q.sub.X” and column 5, “The first and second outputs from the second 90 degree optical hybrid 16 are operated upon in a similar manner to produce third and fourth baseband electrical signals that are proportional to I.sub.Y and Q.sub.Y at the outputs of the third and fourth photodetectors 36,42”); and
an error detector (see Figure 3, which is an embodiment of DSP 28, correction block 62) that detects, as an angle error (see column 9, “FIG. 3 is an example embodiment of a digital signal processing implementation 60 for correcting the quadrature angle error between the detected in-phase and quadrature signals of the first polarization component. The digital signal processing block 28 of FIG. 1 performs the digital signal processing required by the digital signal processing implementation 60. The detected in-phase and quadrature signals supplied from the ADCs are used to generate the quadrature angle error estimate”), a deviation in orthogonality between the in-phase component and the quadrature component based on the signals (see column 6, “Quadrature angle error is a phase angle error occurring when a 90 degree phase angle between the in-phase and quadrature signals deviates from 90 degrees”), the components being generated in an optical hybrid circuit that performs coherent detection of the received light (see Figure 1, optical hybrids 14 and 16 and column 6, “However, practical implementation of the 90 degree optical hybrid does introduce errors in the first and second demodulated baseband signals. The errors to the first and second demodulated baseband signals are caused by gain imbalance, differential delay, and quadrature angle error”), and updates a setting value to be used for compensation processing of the deviation in orthogonality based on the angle error (see claim 1, “…compensating for the quadrature angle error by multiplying the first detected signal and the second detected signal by coefficients which are a function of the estimate of the quadrature angle error that substantially cancel the quadrature angle error”).
Sun does not expressively teach wherein the compensation processing of the deviation in orthogonality [occurs] in at least one of the optical hybrid circuit or an equalizer.
However, Agazzi in a similar invention in the same field of endeavor teaches an optical receiver (see Agazzi Figure 1) configured to perform compensation processing of deviation in orthogonality (see paragraph [0056]) between in-phase and quadrature components of a signal (see paragraph [0041]) as taught in Sun wherein
the compensation processing of the deviation in orthogonality [occurs] in at least one of the optical hybrid circuit or an equalizer (see paragraph [0056]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would have found it obvious as a matter of simple substitution to replace the compensation processing in a generic correction block (see Sun Figure 3) as taught in Sun with compensation processing in an equalizer as taught in Agazzi to yield the predictable results of successfully correcting the angle error in the system.
Method claim 7 recites similar limitations as claim 1, and is rejected under similar rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6 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
Although no prior art is used against claim 2, this is not an indication that it/they is/are allowable. See MPEP 2173.06, section II, second paragraph. The 112 issues cause a great deal of confusion and uncertainty as to the proper interpretation of the limitations of the claim(s). It is therefore difficult for the Examiner to properly search for prior art for the invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CASEY L KRETZER whose telephone number is (571)272-5639. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10:00-7:00 PM Pacific Time.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, David Payne can be reached at (571)272-3024. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CASEY L KRETZER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635
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