Appeal 2007-0953
Application 10/607,466
make in the Brief have not been considered and are deemed to be waived.
See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii)(2004).
The Examiner has indicated how the claimed invention is deemed to
be fully met by the disclosure of McGreer (Answer 3-4). Regarding
independent claim 10, Appellants’ argument primarily focuses on the
limitation in the last six lines of the claim which, according to Appellants,
recites a bidirectional wavelength division multiplexer/demultiplexer
arrangement. Appellants argue that McGreer does not disclose such a bi-
directional arrangement, namely that “the input waveguide…is respectively
disposed on both sides of the substrate centering on the arrayed waveguide
grating, and the output waveguides arranged in parallel with the input
waveguide are respectively disposed on both sides of the substrate centering
on the arrayed waveguide grating” (disputed limitations emphasized).
Specifically, Appellants note that McGreer discloses an input side and
an output side -- not a bi-directional arrangement where both the input and
output waveguides are each disposed on both sides of the substrate centering
on the AWG as claimed (Br. 6-8). The Examiner argues that “no specific bi-
directional arrangement structure is claimed” and that the structure of Fig.
3A (illustrating an AWG with input and output waveguides) can incorporate
the embodiment of Fig. 8 (illustrating transition region) in lieu of the
embodiments of Figs. 3B and 3C. The Examiner contends that “[t]hese
portions are on both sides of the substrate centering on the AWG and the
inputs and outputs are situated in a parallel fashion as claimed” (Answer 5).
For the reasons that follow, we reverse.
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