Ex Parte MIYAGAWA et al - Page 10




               Appeal No. 2006-0386                                                                                              
               Application 09/460,222                                                                                            

                              Regarding claim 26 there is no antecedent basis for “N synthetic                                   
                      optical systems”.                                                                                          
                              Regarding claim 30 the phrase “the N converging grating couplers”                                  
                      lacks proper antecedent basis.                                                                             
               August 17, 1992, Office action at 2-3.                                                                            
                      Claim 21 was rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 4 for failing to further limit claim                        
               11, on which it depended.  Id. at 3.                                                                              
                      Finally, the examiner rejected claims 1 and 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) for                                 
               anticipation by the above-mentioned Nishiuchi et al. patent, which discloses apparatus                            
               for writing to and reading from optical discs having substrates with any of a number of                           
               different thicknesses.  Referring to Figure 1, the apparatus employs, inter alia, a single                        
               objective lens (8), a single laser diode (3), a single beam splitter (6), and a pair of                           
               photodetectors (14, 15).   The tracking and focusing positions of the lens are controlled                         
               by a voice coil 17 responsive to a controller 16.  In order to accommodate optical discs                          
               having either of two different thicknesses, a plate actuator 11 responsive to controller 16                       
               moves a transparent plate (9 in Fig. 1; 22 in Fig. 5(b)) into the light path when the                             
               thinner of the two discs is present.  Various plate configurations are shown in Figures                           
               2(a)-(d).  A disc shape detector (10 in Fig. 1) is used to detect the thickness of the                            
               optical disc.                                                                                                     




                      The examiner read claims 1 and 6 on Nishiuchi as follows:                                                  


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