Ex Parte Neilson

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 20, 2015

12164590 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 20, 2015)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 12/164,590 06/30/2008 David Thomas Neilson Neilson 27 1581 46850 7590 03/20/2015 MENDELSOHN, DRUCKER, & DUNLEAVY, P.C. 1500 JOHN F. KENNEDY BLVD., SUITE 312 PHILADELPHIA, PA 19102 EXAMINER WOLF, DARREN E ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2636 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/20/2015 PAPER Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte DAVID THOMAS NEILSON ____________________ Appeal 2012-009809 Application 12/164,590 Technology Center 2600 ____________________ Before CATHERINE SHIANG, MATTHEW R. CLEMENTS, and JEFFREY A. STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judges. STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Claimed Subject Matter The invention generally relates to a scalable load-balanced interconnect switch based on an arrayed waveguide grating. (Title.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative: Appeal 2012-009809 Application 12/164,590 2 1. An optical interconnect switch, comprising: an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) having N input ports and N output ports, where N is an integer greater than one, said AWG characterized by two or more diffraction orders and adapted to route optical signals from said input ports to said output ports; one or more optical transmitters, each optically coupled to a corresponding input port of the AWG and adapted to generate up to N respective modulated optical signals based on a respective incoming signal and using carrier wavelengths corresponding to at least two different diffraction orders of the AWG, wherein said up to N modulated optical signals are multiplexed and applied to said corresponding input port; and one or more optical receivers, each optically coupled to a corresponding output port of the AWG and adapted to receive a respective optical output signal from said corresponding output port, said optical output signal having one or more of the modulated optical signals applied to the input ports of the AWG by said one or more optical transmitters. Rejections Claims 1–4, 7–9, 11–15, and 18–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Miles (US 7,426,210 B1, issued Sept. 16, 2008) and Jan Cheyns et al., “Optical packet switches based on a single Arrayed Waveguide Grating,” High Performance Switching & Routing (HSPR) Workshop at 5–9, IEEE (2003) (hereinafter “Cheyns”). (Ans. 5– 20.) Claims 5 and 6 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Miles, Cheyns, and Isaac Keslassy et al., “Scaling Internet Routers Using Optics,” SIGCOMM ’03, ACM (2003) (hereinafter “Keslassy”). (Ans. 20–23.) Appeal 2012-009809 Application 12/164,590 3 Claims 16 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Miles, Cheyns, and Keslassy. (Ans. 23–24.) Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Miles, Cheyns, and Sochacki (US 5,889,850, issued Mar. 30, 1999). (Ans. 24–25.) ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s arguments the Examiner erred (Appeal Br. 4–8; Reply Br. 2–3). We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s contentions. We adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and as set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (see Ans. 25–31). We highlight and address specific arguments and findings for emphasis as follows. Appellant argues the combination of Miles and Cheyns is improper because the proposed modification would render Miles’s router unsuitable for its intended purpose. (Appeal Br. 5–6.) According to Appellant, Miles “implies that control of the wavelength generation in ingress edge units 60 alone (i.e., without actively switching crossbar switch 70) is not sufficient for the proper operation of Miles’ optical router” because core controller 40 “controls and coordinates both the optical switching performed in crossbar switch 70 (which is part of optical switch fabric 30) and the wavelength generation in ingress edge units 60.” (Id. at 5.) Appellant contends that replacing a dynamic optical element, such as Miles’s optical switch fabric 30, with an “inherently static” optical element, such as Cheyns’s arrayed waveguide grating (AWG), would render Miles unsatisfactory for its Appeal 2012-009809 Application 12/164,590 4 intended purpose because an inherently static element cannot be actively switched during data transmission. (Id.) Appellant fails to persuade us of reversible error. Appellant essentially argues the purpose of Miles would be frustrated by the use of an AWG because the router in Miles would not operate properly. (See id. at 5– 6 (“The optical router in Miles would be unsuitable for its intended purpose, e.g., because optical switch fabric 30 would no longer be properly re- configurable to be able to execute a scheduling pattern that is required for properly routing optical signals through the optical router . . . .”).) We agree with the Examiner, however, that “Cheyns teaches using an AWG as part of a switch that is active and dynamic and that can operate at the speeds cited by Appellant” (Ans. 26). As the Examiner finds (Ans. 26), Cheyns teaches “Optical Packet Switching allows both dynamic traffic patterns, and makes efficient use of the bandwidth resource” (Cheyns 5). Cheyns explains that, for Optical Packet Switching (OPS), node reconfiguration “needs to be done very fast (order ns).” (Id.) Cheyns further teaches that a switch can be built by manipulating the wavelength of a signal at the input port of an AWG, that “changing of wavelengths can be done using a Tunable Wavelength Converter (TWC),” and that TWCs “can be made fast enough to allow their use in the design of an optical packet switch.” (Id. at 6 (internal citations omitted).) Accordingly, these teachings support the Examiner’s finding that “[a] switch using an AWG that can operate at such speeds can be used with the teaching of Miles which, as cited by Applicant, requires switching speeds only in the microsecond range” (Ans. 26 (emphasis omitted)). Appeal 2012-009809 Application 12/164,590 5 Appellant does not persuasively challenge these findings, which support a prima facie case of obviousness. For additional emphasis, we note the portions of Miles cited by Appellant (see Appeal Br. 5) describe the “non-blocking nature of the optical cross bar switch 70” in Miles. (Miles col. 24, ll. 66–67.) Cheyns teaches that certain of its node architectures using AWGs are likewise “[n]on-blocking.” (E.g., Cheyns 6, Fig. 2.) Cheyns’s teaching of non- blocking architectures using an AWG further undermines Appellant’s argument that Miles would be rendered inoperable if the crossbar switch were replaced by an AWG controlled by tunable converters, as taught by Cheyns. As a result, Appellant fails to persuade us that an AWG could not be used “to implement the required dynamic-switching function of Miles’ optical switch fabric 30” (Reply Br. 2 (emphasis omitted)). Appellant also argues in the Reply Brief that the modification of Miles would impermissibly change the principle of operation of Miles’s router because the AWG, unlike optical switch fabric 30, would not be dynamically switched. (Reply Br. 2–3.) The basic principle of operation of Miles’s router is not changed merely because a portion of the switch fabric is replaced with an AWG as taught in Cheyns. Even if dynamic switching is considered to be Miles’s principle of operation, Appellant admits that the edge units would still be dynamically switched during operation of the modified device. (See Reply Br. 2–3 (“In contrast, the proposed modification changes the principle of operation of Miles’ router to that according to which only edge units 60 are dynamically switched during operation.”).) Appeal 2012-009809 Application 12/164,590 6 We also are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument (Appeal Br. 5–7) that the Examiner failed to show the optical switch fabric of Miles has a suitable static part that may be replaceable by the AWG disclosed in Cheyns. We agree with the Examiner that “Cheyns teaches that the AWG is used in a switch which is actively switched and dynamic, so there is no need to identify a particular static element in the switch fabric of Miles” (Ans. 29 (emphasis omitted).) Appellant further argues that the Examiner has not shown “the input and output ports of the inserted AWG can have appropriate connections, as required by claim 1.” (Appeal Br. 7.) The Examiner finds, and we agree, the switches taught in both Miles and Cheyns have input ports and output ports, and “the basic construction of optical switches having input ports and output ports is well within the scope of one of ordinary skill in the art.” (Ans. 31.) Appellant does not challenge such findings in the Reply Brief (see Reply Br. 2–3). In light of the foregoing, we sustain the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Miles and Cheyns. THE OTHER OBVIOUSNESS REJECTIONS We also sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 2–20 (Ans. 8–25). In response to those rejections, Appellant refers to the arguments made in connection with claim 1, and alleges that Keslassy and Sochacki fail to cure the deficiencies of Miles and Cheyns. (App. Br. 7–8.) We are not persuaded by these arguments, however, for the reasons previously discussed. Appeal 2012-009809 Application 12/164,590 7 DECISION The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED Ssc