Appeal No. 1996-2991
Application 08/302,931
and 17 under the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.196(b) as a new
ground of rejection instituted by this panel, the following
may be considered as a basis for this rejection.
At the outset, to the extent appellants argue in the
reply brief that the Gowar reference, noted by the examiner in
passing at the top of page 10 of the answer in the examiner's
responsive arguments portion of the answer, is a new
reference, any surprise or prejudice to appellants is cured by
the examiner's entry of the reply brief.
Appellants do not dispute and there is a clear teaching
that Legoubin teaches the formation of the grating which
results from spacially modulating the refractive index of the
core region; the core of the fiber in Legoubin is formed of
germanosilicate glass. In accordance with the description of
the prior art in appellants' specification page 1 through line
25 of page 2, it was well known in the art that germanium-
doped silica or glass filament material was a photosensitive
glass which may be made subject to phase gratings. An
apparent limitation of this property was that high power was
required to do so as noted at the middle of page 2 of
appellants' specification.
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