PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16053551
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-08
Publication Date: 2019-02
Patent Classification: ["385", "147000"]

Abstract:
This invention discloses highly scalable and modular automated optical cross connect switch devices which exhibit low loss and scalability to high port counts. In particular, a device for the programmable interconnection of large numbers of optical fibers (100s-1000s) is provided, whereby a two-dimensional array of fiber optic connections is mapped in an ordered and rule-based fashion into a one-dimensional array with tensioned fiber optic circuit elements tracing substantially straight lines there between. Fiber optic elements are terminated in a stacked arrangement of flexible fiber optic circuit elements with a capacity to retain excess fiber lengths while maintaining an adequate bend radius. The combination of these elements partitions the switch volume into multiple independent, non-interfering zones, which retain their independence for arbitrary and unlimited numbers of reconfigurations. The separation into spaced-apart zones provides clearance for one or more robotic actuators to enter the free volume substantially adjacent to the two-dimensional array of connectors and mechanically reconfigure connectors without interrupting other circuits.

Claim (Index 9):
A system of spatially reconfigurable, cross-connected strands for carrying a multiplicity of independent signals across an intervening gap, the collection of strands defining a geometric braid within the gap, the geometric braid having a number of physically separate subbraids emerging from a common extended, linear origin in a first plane and separating out at diverging angles to a second plane comprised of a multiplicity of columns of parallel, spaced apart terminals, wherein each subbraid comprises: the multiplicity of individual strands within each subbraid characterized by an ordered hierarchical relation and topologically equivalent to an ordered stack of separable layers, each strand residing within a layer of the stack and ordered such that all layers of the stack to one side of the individual layer are characterized by a superior relation, and all layers on the opposite side are characterized by an inferior relation, whereby any individual strand of a first subbraid may pass through a second subbraid in a knot-free fashion by bifurcating the second subbraid such that the individual strand passes through the stack of layers at a location separating those layers in inferior relation and those layers in superior relation.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 59.0
- Percentile: 96.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.51327
- Patent Class: 385.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15222649', '13279304', '12196262', '12196266', '13913431']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8736835544368624
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5845465743007414
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8447698564232503
- Mean Citation Score: 475.59757
- Max Citation Score: 527.0532
- Similarity Product: 426.673743752432

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test