Appeal No. 2006-0496 Application No. 10/126,569 We conclude that a prima facie case of obviousness has not been established for the subject matter as a whole of independent claim 35. We do not sustain the � 103 rejection of claim 35, nor of depending claims 36 and 37, over Newton. Claims 3, 4, 15, 16 -- Section 103 rejection over Newton Appellants argue that Newton fails to describe that the input optical signal comprises a “carrier signal.” (Brief at 20.) Appellants’ specification (� 13) teaches that the RF modulated optical signal provided by the optical modulator comprises an RF signal modulated on an optical carrier. Newton teaches modulating a signal onto the light input to the device (col. 10, ll. 3-8). Input signal 260 comprises modulated light pulses as shown in Figure 9 (col. 8, l. 62 - col. 9, l. 3). Newton thus discloses that the input optical signal comprises a carrier signal; i.e., an optical carrier signal onto which is modulated the binary signal described by the reference (Fig. 9; col. 10, ll. 17-21). We therefore sustain the � 103 rejection of claims 3, 4, 15, and 16 as being unpatentable over Newton. Claims 5-11, 17-23, 34, and 38-41 -- Section 103 rejection over Newton Dependent claims 5-11, 17-23, and 38-41 require particular waveform signals. We agree with appellants that the rejection based on an alleged failure to show -9-Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007