Appeal No. 2005-2111 10
Application No. 09/827,454
Moreover, the examiner contends that while Watanabe does not explicitly disclose
a micro-mirror, it was well known, as taught by MacDonald’s mirrors M1-M3, that mirrors
maybe used to steer light beams as desired among elements in an optical system. The
examiner concluded that it would have been obvious to use a mirror, as taught by
MacDonald, in Watanabe’s system “in order to steer the interrogating beam in whatever
direction required by the placement of elements in the system” (answer-pages 18-19).
Moreover, while the examiner recognizes that Watanabe does not specifically disclose
that the phase conjugator therein may be a broad area phase conjugator, as claimed, the
examiner again relies on Vasil’ev for such a disclosure, concluding that it would have been
obvious to use the broad area phase conjugator of Vasil’ev as the phase conjugator in the
Watanabe system “as an engineering design choice of a way to implement the intra-cavity
laser diode phase conjugator already disclosed by Watanabe” (answer-page 19).
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 24 and 26-33 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 for
the reasons argued by appellant.
Appellant argues that Watanabe is based on the use of intra-cavity four-wave
mixing and phase conjugation for the purpose of removing the effects of chromatic
dispersion and pulse distortion in fiber communication systems. It is a one-dimensional
phase conjugator, correcting for wavelenght dependent timing distortions, that relies on
single “spatial” mode operation (see principal brief-page 18). This is not disputed by the
examiner. On the other hand, as argued by appellant, Vasil’ev exploits the “temporal”
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