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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 1-5, in the reply filed on August 6, 2025 is acknowledged.
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 4 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.
Claim 4 recites the limitation "the same additive manufacturing machine.". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
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.
Claims 1-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lezo-Wasem (“Process Design Issues for Rugate Coating Fabrication”, 41st annual technical conference proceedings, Society of Vacuum Coaters, 1998) in view of Atanasov (US 2004/0131300).
Claims 1 and 5: Lezo-Wasem discloses a method of manufacturing one or more instances of a target optical device having a gradient in a dielectric property in one or more spatial dimensions of the target optical device (p. 291-294; rugate filters with sinusoidal refractive index gradient by varying deposition composition), the method including forming an optical device having a test gradient in the dielectric property in one or more spatial dimensions of the optical device wherein the device is formed by material deposition of two or more component materials at relative proportions that varies in the one or more spatial dimensions of the device wherein the two or more component materials differ in the dielectric property (p. 293; co-deposition of two dielectrics with continuously varied mix ratio to produce refractive index profile), measuring an optical response to electromagnetic radiation on the device (p. 292, Table 1), varying relative proportion of the two or more component materials in the one or more spatial dimensions of the device (p. 293). Lezo-Wasem is silent as to using a test coupon. However, Atanasov discloses an optical monitoring system using a test coupon (witness sample). As taught by Atanasov, using a witness sample is advantageous for informing the deposition parameters for a target device for quality control purposes and to control the deposition of target optical devices (fig. 1; ¶¶ 6-8). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the application to have utilized the test coupon of Atanasov in the method of Lezo-Wasem to use measured optical responses to adjust deposition parameters to control optical device fabrication for precise optical properties.
Claim 2: Atanasov discloses the witness sample is a 3D volume (¶¶ 6-10) and the gradient includes a localized region have a different dielectric property than a surrounding region (¶¶ 4, 11-13).
Claim 3: Lezo-Wasem discloses the localized region includes a plurality of voxels that form a 3D shape (p. 293-294).
Claim 4: Atanasov discloses both witness and target substrates sharing the same deposition sources in the same vacuum chamber (¶¶ 10-13).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LARRY THROWER whose telephone number is (571)270-5517. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm MT M-F.
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/LARRY W THROWER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1754