Appeal No. 2005-0783
Application No. 10/039,094
with the examiner that the term, broadly construed, places no
limitation on the axial extent of the region or portion of the
fiber included within the “locality”. Thus, any portion of the
fiber exposed to laser beam 11 of Byron can be considered a “first
locality”. With this construction in mind, it is evident that, in
Byron (Fig. 1), the portion of the fiber (the second locality)
exposed to laser beam 14 is both circumferentially and axially
displaced from at least the left-most portion of the optical fiber
illuminated by the line of light from focused laser beam 11.
Moreover, we note that Byron employs a phase grating mask 13
which apparently breaks up incident laser beam 11 to form a fringe
pattern of light, viz. the line of light from focused beam 11
apparently is broken up into separate segments by the mask.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the point at which beam 14
impinges upon the fiber is both circumferentially and axially
displaced relative to at least some of the segments of light
impinging upon the fiber from laser beam 11.
Rejection (3)
This rejection is also affirmed.
The claims subject to the instant rejection have not been
separately argued. Thus, those claims stand or fall together for
purposes of this appeal, and we again limit our consideration to
claim 1.
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