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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 14-15, 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Vijayan (US Pat. App. Pub. 2025/0097612).
Regarding Claim 1, Vijayan teaches An optical network communication system utilizing a coherent passive optical network (CPON), comprising: an optical line terminal (OLT) (FIG. 1: 110) including: (a) an OLT transmitter configured to transmit a downstream optical signal (Id.) including (i) a first optical tone centered at a first frequency (FIG. 1: “OPTICAL FREQUENCY LINES”), (ii) a second optical tone centered at a second frequency different from the first frequency, (Id.) and (iii) first and second downstream subcarriers distributed proximate the first frequency; (FIG. 1: 114) and (b) an OLT receiver configured to detect an upstream optical signal including first and second upstream subcarriers distributed proximate the second frequency (FIG. 1: 115-1, 2, N); an optical distribution network (ODN) in operable communication with the OLT (FIG. 1: 130) and configured to transport the downstream and upstream optical signals therethrough (Id.); and a first optical network unit (ONU) (FIG. 1 (sheet 3): 120-1) in operable communication with the ODN (FIG. 1 (sheet 3): 130), and including: (a) a first ONU receiver configured to detect the first and second downstream subcarriers using the first optical tone to generate a local oscillator (LO) signal for coherent detection ([0020] (“each ONU is able to use optical frequency lines of the regenerated OFC as the carrier signal for upstream communications to the OLT and, in the case of a coherent PON, as the LO for downstream communications from the OLT.”; see also Claim 38); and (b) a first ONU transmitter configured to generate the first and second upstream subcarriers using the second optical tone ([0020] (“The locking of the OFCs at the ONUs to the OFC at the OLT enables all of the carrier signals, and all of the LOs in the case of a coherent PON, to be locked to each other in both the downstream and the upstream, thereby enabling efficient operation for detection within the PON in both the downstream direction from the OLT to the ONUs and the upstream direction from the ONUs to the OLT.”)), wherein the first and second optical tones, the first and second downstream subcarriers, and the first and second upstream subcarriers do not overlap in the frequency domain. (it’s inherent that the signals not overlap in the frequency domain as this would scramble the message)
Regarding Claim 2, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 1, wherein the first and second downstream subcarriers and the first and second upstream subcarriers utilize time and frequency division multiplexing (TFDM) ([0016] (“the downstream and upstream use time-division multiplexing (TDM) and time-division multiple access (TDMA), respectively, for communicating with different ONUs.”))
Regarding Claim 3, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 2, wherein the OLT transmitter is further configured to transmit the first and second downstream subcarriers as continuous wave (CW) TFDM signals. (FIG. 1: 111, 113; [0043-44])
Regarding Claim 4, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 2, wherein the ONU transmitter is further configured to transmit the first and second upstream subcarriers as burst TFDM subcarriers. ([0016] (“high-speed burst mode transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs)”))
Regarding Claim 14, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 1, wherein the first ONU receiver includes a first optical injection locking (OIL) subsystem configured to injection lock the generated LO signal to the first frequency centering the first optical tone. ([0057]; FIG. 1 (Sheet 3)).
Regarding Claim 15, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 14, wherein the first ONU transmitter includes a second OIL subsystem configured to injection lock at least one optical carrier of the generated first and second upstream subcarriers to the second frequency centering the second optical tone. ([0058] (“For example, the demultiplexer 123 may be implemented using passive splitters followed by OIL, tunable filters, an AWG, or the like. It will be appreciated that the demultiplexer 123 may be implemented in various other ways.”))
Regarding Claim 17, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 1, wherein the OLT further includes an OLT transmitter digital signal processor (DSP) and an OLT receiver DSP, and wherein the first ONU further includes a first ONU transmitter DSP and a first ONU receiver DSP. ([0077] (“enabling use of improved coherent DSP at both the OLT and the ONUs”))
Regarding Claim 18, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of second ONUs (a) disposed remotely from the OLT, and (b) and configured for operable communication with the OLT over the ODN. (FIG. 1 (sheet 3): “ONU 120-N”)
Regarding Claim 19, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 18, wherein the CPON is configured for point-to-multipoint (P2MP) operation. (its inherent that the PON system in Vijayan is using P2MP)
Regarding Claim 20, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 18, wherein the plurality of second ONUs are configured to transmit within the upstream optical signal using time and frequency division multiplexing (TFDM) ([0016] (“the downstream and upstream use time-division multiplexing (TDM) and time-division multiple access (TDMA), respectively, for communicating with different ONUs.”))
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) 2-5, 10, 17, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vijayan (US Pat. App. Pub. 2025/0097612) in light of Xu (M. Xu, Z. Jia, H. Zhang, L. A. Campos, and C. Knittle, "Intelligent Burst Receiving Control in 100G Coherent PON with 4×25G TFDM Upstream Transmission," in Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2022, (Optica Publishing Group, 2022).
Regarding Claim 2, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 1,
Xu teaches wherein the first and second downstream subcarriers and the first and second upstream subcarriers utilize time and frequency division multiplexing (TFDM) (p. 1, ¶ 2 (“The conceptual architecture of the coherent TFDM PON system is shown in Fig. 1(a)”)).
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to include use TFDM to modulate the signals. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Vijayan and Xu both relate to optical communication systems and are therefore analogous art.
Regarding Claim 3, the combination of Vijayan and Xu teaches The communication system of claim 2, wherein the OLT transmitter is further configured to transmit the first and second downstream subcarriers as continuous wave (CW) TFDM signals (Xu, p. 3, ¶ 1 (“The initial received signal in time domain is shown in Fig. 4(a), where the asynchronous bursts in four sub-channels and two ONUs are mixed together forming a quasi-continuous-wave distribution.”)).
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to include use CW TFDM to modulate the signals. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Vijayan and Xu teaches The communication system of claim 2, wherein the ONU transmitter is further configured to transmit the first and second upstream subcarriers as burst TFDM subcarriers. (Xu, p. 1, ¶ 2 (“The burst distribution under TFDM operation is shown in Fig. 1(b), where the bursts from different ONUs are dynamically allocated in different sub-channels, leading to a highly flexible architecture.”))
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to include use burst TFDM subcarriers for transmission. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of Vijayan and Xu teaches The communication system of claim 1, configured for 100 Gb/s (100G) operation. (Xu, p. 1, ¶ 2 (“Modulated by 25-Gbit/s dual-polarization (DP) QPSK signal in each channel, the total UL data rate reaches 100 Gbit/s”)
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to transmit data at a rate of 100G. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Regarding Claim 10, the combination of Vijayan and Xu teaches The communication system of claim 5, wherein the upstream optical signal further includes third and fourth upstream subcarriers distributed proximate the second frequency, and wherein each of the first, second, third, and fourth upstream subcarriers are configured to run at 25 Gb/s (25G) (Xu, p. 1, ¶ 1 (“By providing 4×25G independent sub-channels, different network services and ONU groups can be allocated with different bands without the need of contention resolutions”)).
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to transmit data using 4 25G bands as taught by Xu. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Regarding Claim 17, the combination of Vijayan and Xu teaches The communication system of claim 1, wherein the OLT further includes an OLT transmitter digital signal processor (DSP) and an OLT receiver DSP, and wherein the first ONU further includes a first ONU transmitter DSP and a first ONU receiver DSP. (Xu, p. 3, ¶ 1 (“before the payload signals are demodulated by coherent BB DSP.”)
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to apply Xu’s demodulation technique of using a DSP to demodulate the transmission received by the ONU in Vijayan. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Regarding Claim 20, the combination of Vijayan and Xu teaches The communication system of claim 18, wherein the plurality of second ONUs are configured to transmit within the upstream optical signal using time and frequency division multiplexing (TFDM) (Xu, p. 1, ¶ 2 (“The conceptual architecture of the coherent TFDM PON system is shown in Fig. 1(a)”))
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to include use TFDM to modulate the signals. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vijayan (US Pat. App. Pub. 2025/0097612) in light of Xu (M. Xu, Z. Jia, H. Zhang, L. A. Campos, and C. Knittle, "Intelligent Burst Receiving Control in 100G Coherent PON with 4×25G TFDM Upstream Transmission," in Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2022, (Optica Publishing Group, 2022) in further light of Murphy (S. L. Murphy, F. Jamali, P. D. Townsend and C. Antony, "High Dynamic Range 100G PON Enabled by SOA Preamplifier and Recurrent Neural Networks," in Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 41, no. 11, pp. 3522-3532, 1 June1, 2023).
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Vijayan and Xu teaches The communication system of claim 5,
Murphy teaches wherein each of the first and second downstream subcarriers are configured to run at 50 Gb/s (50G). (Murphy, p. 3522, ¶ 4)
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to teach modulating with two 50g subcarriers as described in Murphy. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Vijayan and Murphy both relate to optical communication systems and are therefore analogous art.
Claim(s) 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vijayan (US Pat. App. Pub. 2025/0097612) in light of Xu (M. Xu, Z. Jia, H. Zhang, L. A. Campos, and C. Knittle, "Intelligent Burst Receiving Control in 100G Coherent PON with 4×25G TFDM Upstream Transmission," in Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2022, (Optica Publishing Group, 2022) in further light of Murphy (S. L. Murphy, F. Jamali, P. D. Townsend and C. Antony, "High Dynamic Range 100G PON Enabled by SOA Preamplifier and Recurrent Neural Networks," in Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 41, no. 11, pp. 3522-3532, 1 June1, 2023) in further light of Floridia (BR PI1103951 A2).
Regarding Claim 7, the combination of Vijayan, Xu, and Murphy teach The communication system of claim 6, and wherein the first and second downstream subcarriers each span a frequency bandwidth less than 15 GHz (Xu, p. 1, ¶ 2 (“each channel occupies a 10-GHz window with 6.25-GHz bandwidth centered at -15, -5, +5, +15 GHz”).
Floridia teaches wherein the first and second frequencies are spaced at least 100 GHz apart, (p. 4, ¶ 3 (“if the channels are 100 GHz apart, the method allows measuring up to 5 ps (PS)of DGD”))
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to include the frequency spacing taught by Floridia. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Vijayan and Floridia both relate to optical communication systems and are therefore analogous art.
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of Vijayan, Xu, Murphy, and Floridia teach The communication system of claim 7, wherein the first downstream subcarrier is centered 15 GHz less than the first frequency, and wherein the second downstream subcarrier is centered 15 GHz greater than the first frequency. (Xu, p. 1, ¶ 2 (“each channel occupies a 10-GHz window with 6.25-GHz bandwidth centered at -15, -5, +5, +15 GHz”).
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to include the bandwidth arrangement taught by Xu. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vijayan (US Pat. App. Pub. 2025/0097612) in light of Xu (M. Xu, Z. Jia, H. Zhang, L. A. Campos, and C. Knittle, "Intelligent Burst Receiving Control in 100G Coherent PON with 4×25G TFDM Upstream Transmission," in Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2022, (Optica Publishing Group, 2022) in further light of Murphy (S. L. Murphy, F. Jamali, P. D. Townsend and C. Antony, "High Dynamic Range 100G PON Enabled by SOA Preamplifier and Recurrent Neural Networks," in Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 41, no. 11, pp. 3522-3532, 1 June1, 2023) in further light of Floridia (BR PI1103951 A2) in further light of Soto (US Pat. App. Pub. 2023/0006757).
Regarding Claim 9, the combination of Vijayan, Xu, Murphy, and Floridia teach The communication system of claim 7,
Soto teaches wherein each of the first and second downstream subcarriers is configured for operation as a 12.5 GBd ([0070] (“a 12.5 Gbit/sec implementation”)) dual polarization (DP)-quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signal (DP-QPSK) ([0052] (“To increase the number of bits per symbol transmitted, m-ary modulation is performed in the MOD 309a, 309b block. In one implementation, an m-ary modulation method such as… (DP-QPSK”))
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to use 12.5 GBd DP-QPSK modulation for transmission based on the teachings of Soto. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Vijayan and Soto both relate to optical communication systems and are therefore analogous art.
Claim(s) 11-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vijayan (US Pat. App. Pub. 2025/0097612) in light of Xu (M. Xu, Z. Jia, H. Zhang, L. A. Campos, and C. Knittle, "Intelligent Burst Receiving Control in 100G Coherent PON with 4×25G TFDM Upstream Transmission," in Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2022, (Optica Publishing Group, 2022) in further light of Floridia (BR PI1103951 A2).
Regarding Claim 11, the combination of Vijayan, Xu, and Floridia teach The communication system of claim 10, wherein the first and second frequencies are spaced at least 100 GHz apart (Floridia, p. 4, ¶ 3 (“if the channels are 100 GHz apart, the method allows measuring up to 5 ps (PS)of DGD”)), and wherein the first, second, third, and fourth upstream subcarriers each span a frequency bandwidth less than 10 GHz (Xu, p. 1, ¶ 2 (“each channel occupies a 10-GHz window with 6.25-GHz bandwidth centered at -15, -5, +5, +15 GHz”).
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to space the channels as taught by Floridia and to use bandwidths less than 15 GHz as taught by Xu. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Regarding Claim 12, the combination of Vijayan, Xu, and Floridia teach The communication system of claim 11, wherein the first upstream subcarrier is centered 15 GHz less than the second frequency, wherein the second upstream subcarrier is centered 5 GHz less than the second frequency, wherein the third upstream subcarrier is centered 5 GHz greater than the second frequency, and wherein the fourth upstream subcarrier is centered 15 GHz greater than the second frequency (Xu, p. 1, ¶ 2 (“each channel occupies a 10-GHz window with 6.25-GHz bandwidth centered at -15, -5, +5, +15 GHz”).
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to use the channel arrangement taught by Xu. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Regarding Claim 13, the combination of Vijayan, Xu, and Floridia teach The communication system of claim 11, wherein each of the first, second, third, and fourth upstream subcarriers is configured for operation as a 6.25 GBd Xu, p. 1, ¶ 2 (“each channel occupies a 10-GHz window with 6.25-GHz bandwidth centered at -15, -5, +5, +15 GHz”) dual polarization (DP)-quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signal (DP-QPSK) (Id. (“Modulated by 25-Gbit/s dual-polarization (DP) QPSK signal”))
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan to use the channel arrangement modulation technique taught by Xu. Such a combination would merely be applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield a predictable result.
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vijayan (US Pat. App. Pub. 2025/0097612) in light of Ratkoceri (Ratkoceri, J.; Batagelj, B. Determining the Stable Injection Locking of a Fabry-Pérot Laser by Observing the RF Spectral Components Generated by a Low-Reflectivity External Cavity. Photonics 2021, 8, 487).
Regarding Claim 16, Vijayan teaches The communication system of claim 14,
Ratkoceri teaches wherein each of the first and second OIL subsystem includes at least one Fabry-Perot laser diode (FP-LD) (p. 7, ¶ 1)
Before the filing date of the instant application, it would have obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vijayan’s OIL system to use an FP-LD as taught by Ratkoceri. Such a combination would merely be a simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results.
Vijayan and Ratkoceri both relate to optical communication systems and are therefore analogous art.
Conclusion
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/PAUL MORGAN BROCK/Examiner, Art Unit 2634 June 23, 2026
/KENNETH N VANDERPUYE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2634
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