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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. 17/904,599, filed on08/19/2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03/16/26 & 07/14/25 has been acknowledged and considered. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jaaskelainen et al (US 2019/0204192, "Jaaskelainen") in view of LeBlanc et al (US 2020/0032645 hereinafter “Leblanc”).
Regarding claim 1; Jaaskelainen discloses a long-range optical fiber distributed sensor system (100 or 200 @ figures 1 and 3), comprising:
an optical source (102 @ figure 1 or 202 @ figure 3) arranged in use to produce optical sensing pulses (132 @ figure 1 and paragraph [0022]: e.g., the input laser beam 132 travels along the length of the optical fiber 110, a small amount of the signal is backscattered by Rayleigh, Brillouin, and/or Raman scattering effects);
a sensing optical fiber (116 @ figure 3) deployable in use in an environment to be sensed (paragraph [0020]: e.g., Optical fiber based distributed sensing is based on monitoring changes to the intrinsic properties of the light within the fiber when it is exposed to environmental changes, such as temperature or pressure) and arranged in use to receive the optical sensing pulses (132 @ figure 1) of the optical source (102 @ figure 1 or 202 @ figure 3); and
sensing apparatus (224, 226, 232 @ figure 3) arranged in use to detect light from the optical sensing pulses reflected and/or backscattered back along the sensing optical fiber (116 @ figure 3 and paragraph [0020]: e.g., The distributed sensing methods are based on light scattering and optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) technology. The backscattered and reflected signals from the optical fiber 110 used in distributed sensing applications are Rayleigh, Brillouin, and Raman scattering) and to determine any one or more of an acoustic, vibration, temperature or other parameter (paragraphs [0015] and [0022]: e.g., the analog to digital and signal-conditioning unit 118 and the system control and data acquisition unit 124 controls the drive current of the controllable laser source unit 102, the modulator 104 and the amplifier 106 and gather the data to measure key measurements such as distributed acoustics, temperature S, and strain) that perturbs the path length of the sensing optical fiber (116 @ figure 3) in dependence on the reflected and/or backscattered light;
the system (200 @ figure 53) being characterised by: at least one transport fiber (114 @ figure 3) arranged between the sensing optical fiber (116 @ figure 3) and the optical source (202 @ figure 3) to transport the optical sensing pulses (132 @ figure 1) from the optical source (102 or 202 @ figures 1 and 3) to the sensing fiber (116 @ figure 3) and to transport backscatter and/or reflections from along the sensing fiber (116 @ figure 3) back to the sensing apparatus (224, 226, 232 @ figure 3). See figures 1-5
Jaaskelainen discloses all of feature of claimed invention except for the transport fiber comprises a forward transport fiber arranged to convey optical sensing pulses from the optical source to the sensing optical fiber, and a return transport fiber arranged to convey back scatter and/or reflections from the sensing optical fiber back to an interrogator, wherein the forward transport fiber comprises at least a first part formed of high power handling fiber and a second part formed of low loss fiber, the first and second parts being arranged in series. However, LeBlanc teaches that it is known in the art to provide the transport fiber (315, 335, 355, 365, 375 @ figure 3) comprises a forward transport fiber (315, 335 @ figure 3) arranged to convey optical sensing pulses (355 @ figure 3) from the optical source (302 @ figure 3 and paragraph [0043]:e.g., the DS interrogator 302 may include an optical source (not shown). The optical source may include a laser and a pulse generator. The laser can emit optical signals that can be manipulated by the pulse generator.) to the sensing optical fiber (355 @ figure 3), and a return transport fiber (365, 375, 315 @ figure 14) arranged to convey back scatter and/or reflections (figures 3-4) from the sensing optical fiber (355 @ figures 3-4) back to the interrogator (303 @ figures 3-4), wherein the forward transport fiber (315, 355 @ figure 3) comprises at least a first part formed of high power handling fiber (paragraphs [0042] and [0053]: e.g., The DS interrogator 302 is connected to a SMF lead, which is connected to the “DAS” side of the assembly using a high power fiber connector 304) and a second part formed of low loss fiber (paragraph [0015]: e.g., The mode scrambler can distribute the energy of the optical signal among multiple low loss modes. The mode scrambler can generate a multi-mode optical signal based on a single-mode optical signal and provide a lower density multi-mode optical signal as an interrogation signal for a distributed sensing optical fiber), the first and second parts being arranged in series (figures 3-4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of claimed invention to combine long range optical fiber distributed system of Jaaskelainen with the transport fiber comprises a forward transport fiber arranged to convey optical sensing pulses from the optical source to the sensing optical fiber, and a return transport fiber arranged to convey back scatter and/or reflections from the sensing optical fiber back to an interrogator, wherein the forward transport fiber comprises at least a first part formed of high power handling fiber and a second part formed of low loss fiber, the first and second parts being arranged in series as taught by LeBlanc for the purpose of improving distributed sensing interrogator using single-mode fiber for multi-mode fiber interrogation.
Regarding claim 18; Jaaskelainen discloses all of feature of claimed invention except for the sensor is an optical fiber distributed acoustic sensor. However, LeBlanc teaches that it is known in the art to provide the sensor is an optical fiber distributed acoustic sensor (paragraph [0032]: e.g., the distributed sensors may comprise distributed acoustic sensors, which may also use optical fibers and permit a distributed measurement of local acoustics at any given point along the fiber). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of claimed invention to combine long range optical fiber distributed system of Jaaskelainen with limitation above as taught by LeBlanc for the purpose of improving distributed sensing interrogator using single-mode fiber for multi-mode fiber interrogation.
Regarding claim 19; Jaaskelainen discloses all of feature of claimed invention except for the sensor is an optical fiber distributed temperature sensor. However, LeBlanc teaches that it is known in the art to provide the sensor is an optical fiber distributed temperature sensor (paragraph [0039]: e.g., the optical fibers in the cable 203 may be used as distributed acoustic sensors and/or distributed temperature sensors. In an example, one or more optical fibers may be used for one or more of DAS or DTS). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of claimed invention to combine long range optical fiber distributed system of Jaaskelainen with limitation above as taught by LeBlanc for the purpose of improving distributed sensing interrogator using single-mode fiber for multi-mode fiber interrogation.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jaaskelainen in view of LeBlanc as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Kliner et al (US 2018/0205195 hereinafter “Kliner”).
Regarding claim 2; Jaaskelainen in view of LeBlanc combination discloses all of features of claimed invention except for the respective lengths of the first parts and the second parts are determined in dependence on the respective loss rates of the high-power fiber and the low loss fiber. However, Kliner teaches that it is known in the art to provide the respective lengths of the first parts (3004 @ figures 30-36) and the second parts (3008 @ figures 30-36) are determined in dependence on the respective loss rates of the high-power fiber of the first part and the low loss fiber of the second part (paragraphs [0151] and [0007]: e.g., acting upon the one or more lengths of fiber further comprises altering a coupling of the optical beam between a first length of the fiber and the confinement region of a second length of the fiber, and/or altering a rate of loss of the optical beam from the confinement region over at least one of the lengths of fiber). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of claimed invention to combine long range optical fiber distributed system of Jaaskelainen with limitation above as taught by Kliner for the purpose of improvement varying optical losses within the cavity by acting upon the one or more lengths of fiber within the cavity.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-17 and 20-21 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.
The prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious a long-range optical fiber distributed sensor system comprising all the specific elements with the specific combination including the high power handling fiber has a higher loss rate than the low loss fiber, and the length of the first part corresponds to a length of high power fiber that for an input optical sensing pulse of a first power propagates that pulse until it reaches the same power level as would have been achieved had low loss fiber been used for the first part with the input optical sensing pulse being of a second power lower than the first power, the first and second power levels being those power levels such that pulse propagation would occur in the respective fiber types without causing non-linear distortion effects in set forth of claim 3.
The prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious a long-range optical fiber distributed sensor system comprising all the specific elements with the specific combination including the sensing fiber comprises a plurality of reflector portions distributed along its length in at least a first sensing region thereof, the reflectivity of the reflector portions being: i) inversely dependent on or inversely proportional to the number of reflector portions in the at least first sensing region; and ii) dependent on or proportional to a selected amount of crosstalk between the reflector portions in the at least first sensing region in set forth of claim 20.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
1) Stark et al (US Patent No. 11,493,380) discloses a distributed acoustic system may comprise an interrogator which includes a single photon detector, an umbilical line comprising a first fiber optic cable and a second fiber optic cable attached at one end to the interrogator.
2) Parker et al (US 2017/0343389) discloses the optical fiber sensing system is one selected from the group including an optical fiber distributed acoustic sensor (DAS), an optical fiber distributed temperature sensor (DTS), or an optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) system.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SANG H NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-2425. The examiner can normally be reached M-F.
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/SN/
September 23, 2026
/SANG H NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2877
