Appeal No. 1999-2250
Application No. 08/980,308
a programmable Bragg grating, it has a variable interval period, thus teaching away
from an arrangement having a regular, or fixed, interval period, as claimed. With regard
to the application of Painchaud, appellants argue that there is no suggestion in Chawki
that would have led the artisan to modify the arrangement of Chawki in any manner
suggested by Painchaud. Moreover, argue appellants, the abstract of Painchaud
indicates that the period of a Bragg filter is controlled such that the “period P of the
interference pattern may be altered...,” thus also teaching away from the instant
claimed invention wherein the Bragg grating reflection filter has a grating period “having
regular intervals.”
Merely because Chawki discloses “programmable” gratings, this does not teach
away from the instant claimed invention. A grating may be programmable yet still have
a regular interval period, as claimed. After all, appellants argue that his grating period
has “regular intervals” yet the instant specification discloses “periodically varying the
refractive index” of a fiber [page 9, lines 13-14].
Moreover, Chawki also discloses an alternative embodiment, at column 5, lines
41-45, wherein the multiplexer “only comprises a single photoinduced Bragg grating,
which is set to the corresponding wavelength...without having any need for a control
means.” Accordingly, it would appear that in such an embodiment, if there is no need
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