Appeal No. 2007-0400
Application 10/788,054
depicted in Figure 6 are the photodiodes 614and 632 associated with the single
illustrated laser.
The Examiner held that the “n” lasers depicted in Figure 3 necessarily
include the spare lasers as well as the initially active lasers and that, as a result,
each active laser and each spare laser has an associated pair of photodiodes 314
and 332 (Answer 7). Appellant contends that in view of the reference’s
explanation in column 8, lines 48-63 that “n” is the number of active channels, all
of the “n” lasers depicted in Figure 3 necessarily are active lasers (Br. 4).
Although not relied on by Appellant, interpretation of “n” is also consistent with
the reference’s explanation that the disclosed optical transmitter employs “n”
initially active lasers and “k” spare lasers (col. 5, ll. 46-47). However, the effect of
limiting the “n” lasers depicted in Figure 3 to active lasers would be to ignore the
reference’s principle teaching of providing spare lasers for automatically replacing
failed lasers, which implies that the total number of initially active and spare lasers
exceeds the number of channels. The Examiner is therefore correct to hold that the
“n” lasers depicted in Figure 3 necessarily include spare lasers as well as initially
active lasers and respective pairs of photodiodes 314 and 332 are assigned to each
spare laser and also each initially active laser. The Examiner is also correct to hold
that the v grooves in Figure 6 are intended to support lasers of both types and that a
etalon plate 614 are all discrete, components mounted in the v grooves 642” (col.
11, ll. 50-52).
7
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