PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16002882
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-06
Publication Date: 2018-12
Patent Classification: ["385", "022000"]

Abstract:
A steerable optical transmit and receive terminal includes a MEMS-based N×1 optical switching network. Each optical switch in the switching network uses an electrostatic MEMS structure to selectively position a translatable optical grating close to or far from an optical waveguide. In the close (“ON”) position, light couples between the translatable optical grating and the optical waveguide, whereas in the far (“OFF”) position, no appreciable light couples between the translatable optical grating and the optical waveguide. The translatable optical grating is disposed at or near a surface of the optical switching network. Thus, the translatable optical grating emits light into, or receives light from, free space. The steerable optical transmit and receive terminal also includes a lens and can steer a free space optical beam in a direction determined by which port of the N×1 optical switching network is ON.

Claim (Index 1):
A partitioned optical switch, comprising:\n a plurality of optical switch arrays, each optical switch array of the plurality of optical switch arrays having a respective common port and a respective plurality of other ports that are distinct from other ports of other optical switch arrays of the plurality of optical switch arrays, each optical switch array of the plurality of optical switch arrays comprising:\n a respective waveguide optically coupled to the respective common port; and \n a respective plurality of optical switches disposed along the respective waveguide, wherein each optical switch of the plurality of optical switches is optically coupled between the respective waveguide and a respective port of the respective plurality of other ports, wherein each optical switch of the plurality of optical switches comprises:\n a respective translatable optical grating configured to translate between at least two positions, a first position of the at least two positions being sufficiently close to the respective waveguide to optically couple with the respective waveguide with a coupling efficiency of at least about 25%, and a second position of the at least two positions being sufficiently far from the respective waveguide to optically couple with the respective waveguide with a coupling efficiency of at most about 5%; and \n a respective MEMS structure configured to selectively translate the respective translatable optical grating to the first position and to the second position.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 59.0
- Percentile: 94.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.28571
- Patent Class: 385.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15844527', '14338408', '10493107', '14239771', '12226453']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7818146016604764
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5330050925364621
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7569336507480751
- Mean Citation Score: 242.632042
- Max Citation Score: 354.30585
- Similarity Product: 280.36359135357145

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 0
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test