PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15884622
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-01
Publication Date: 2019-08
Patent Classification: ["385", "030000"]

Abstract:
An optical coupler that provides evanescent optical coupling includes an optical fiber and a waveguide. The optical fiber has a glass core, a glass inner cladding surrounding the glass core, and a polymeric outer cladding surrounding the glass inner cladding. The glass core and glass inner cladding define for the fiber a glass portion, which can be exposed at one end of the fiber by removing a portion of the polymeric outer cladding. The glass portion has a glass-portion surface. The waveguide has a waveguide core and a surface, and can be part of a photonic device. The glass portion of the fiber is interfaced with the waveguide to establish evanescent coupling between the fiber and the waveguide. Alignment features are used to facilitate aligning the fiber core to the waveguide core during the interfacing process to ensure suitable efficiency of the evanescent coupling.

Claim (Index 16):
An optical coupler, comprising:\n at least one optical fiber having a central axis, a glass core, and a cladding, the cladding comprising an inner cladding comprising glass and an outer cladding comprising a polymer, and wherein the glass core and the glass inner cladding define a glass portion of the fiber; wherein the at least one optical fiber includes an end section wherein the glass portion is at least partially exposed to define a curved glass-portion surface having a central section, wherein the core resides at or closely proximate to the curved glass-portion surface at the central section; a photonic device comprising a body that operably supports at least one waveguide having a waveguide core that resides within the body; and wherein the central section of the curved glass-portion surface is operably disposed relative to the at least one waveguide and aligned therewith by the operation of at least one alignment feature so that the glass core of the at least one fiber establishes evanescent coupling between the at least one optical fiber and the at least one waveguide.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 27.0
- Percentile: 86.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.54098
- Patent Class: 385.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15405396', '14861429', '15427074', '15337376', '12474210']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8328046410109723
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5109826002634614
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8006224369362211
- Mean Citation Score: 282.8836760000001
- Max Citation Score: 316.61865
- Similarity Product: 258.3143508471787

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