Appeal No. 2006-2172
Application No. 10/685,270
Rejection under 37 CFR § 41.50(b)
We make the following new ground of rejection using our authority under 37 CFR
§ 41.50(b). Claims 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by
Xiang. Xiang discloses the demultiplexing of optical signals in which a concentric
spectrometer 110 including an aberration-corrected diffraction grating 100 receives a multi-
wavelength optical signal (12, 20, 30, Figure 5). This multi-wavelength optical signal is
separated into its constituent parts using the concentric spectrometer 110 (Xiang, column 3,
lines 15-33) with the dispersed spectra signals being applied to CCD detector 50.
We further note that, although the Xiang reference has been applied only against
appealed claims 6 and 7, this is not to be taken as an indication of the patentability of claims
1-5, 8, and 9. In any resumption of the prosecution of this application before the Examiner,
the Examiner should consider the applicability of the applied prior art as well as the other
prior art of record and any other discovered prior art, to claims 1-5, 8, and 9.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is reversed. A new
rejection of claims 6 and 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is set forth herein.
This decision contains a new ground of rejection pursuant to 37 CFR § 41.50(b)
(effective September 13, 2004, 69 Fed. Reg. 49960 (August 12, 2004), 1286 Off. Gaz. Pat.
Office 21 (September 7, 2004)). 37 CFR § 41.50(b) provides “[a] new ground of rejection
pursuant to this paragraph shall not be considered final for judicial review.”
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