Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/16/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The Amendment “the light intensity unevenness being formed due to a difference in emission intensities caused by an overlapped region where irradiated regions of light emitted from the plurality of light-emitting elements overlap” does not have patentable weight as neither method or apparatus detects or identifies what is the cause of the unevenness. In reality Prior art by D2 does not care what is cased the unevenness , different parts of it can be cased by different factors , the sensing device detects what is present, similarly claims of current Application detect some unevenness. Nothing is identified what caused unevenness and how much of it attributed to “a difference in emission intensities caused by an overlapped region”.
DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 10, 12 and bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 20200355810 A1 in view of D2 KR 20090116024 A.
Regarding clams 1, 10, 12 D1 teaches
a light emitting unit including
a light receiving unit including a light-receiving element array formed by a plurality of light-receiving pixels, [0042]the light-receiving pixels receiving reflected light corresponding to emitted light of the light emitting unit; (implicit for lidar)
a storage unit configured to store a reference light-receiving region on the light-receiving element array corresponding to a location of occurrence of light intensity unevenness included in the emitted light of the light emitting unit; and[0047-0048]
and teaches performing misalignment correction [0061]
Although D1 does not explicitly teach a plurality of light-emitting elements It is just a matter obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art in order to illuminate multiple point simultaneously.
D1 does not teach while D2 teaches
a determining unit configured to determine an optical axis misalignment using a displacement between the reference light-receiving region and a detected light-receiving region of light intensity unevenness included in the reflected light of the emitted light on the light-receiving element array.(abstract)
the light intensity unevenness being formed due to a difference in emission intensities caused by an overlapped region where irradiated regions of light emitted from the plurality of light-emitting elements overlap.(no patentable weight as D2 does not care what was the cause of the unevenness but rather associating it with parameter which is corrected, which can be wrong by the way due to the wrong assumption )
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 with teaching by D2 in order to calibrate the optical axis shifts.
2. The optical detection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of light-receiving pixels are arranged without a gap in an arrangement direction of the plurality of light-emitting elements so as to receive the light intensity unevenness included in the reflected light by the plurality of light-receiving pixels. (obvious modification in order to avoid dead area on detector and picture )
3. The optical detection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of light-receiving pixels are arranged without a gap in a direction orthogonal to an arrangement direction of the plurality of light-emitting elements so as to receive the light intensity unevenness included in the reflected light by the plurality of light-receiving pixels. (obvious modification in order to avoid dead area on detector and picture )
4. The optical detection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of light-receiving pixels has a dimension such that the light intensity unevenness included in the reflected light is received by the plurality of light-receiving pixels. (decreasing the pixel size and closeness to each other is just a matter obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art in order to achieve less dead space in the image )
7. The optical detection apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the determining unit is configured to: determine that an optical axis misalignment has occurred when an amount of displacement between the reference light-receiving region and the detected light-receiving region is greater than a predetermined first determination value; and execute a process for notifying of the optical axis misalignment. (obvious modification to initiate calibration procedure)
5. The optical detection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determining unit is configured to determine the detected light-receiving region using a difference between a light intensity of the light intensity unevenness and a light intensity of the reflected light. (obvious modification to detect intensity difference and therefore detect misalignment)
6. The optical detection apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the determining unit is configured to learn the difference using the light intensity of the light intensity unevenness and the light intensity of the reflected light. (obvious modification to detect intensity difference and therefore detect misalignment)
13. (Previously Presented) The optical detection apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the determining unit is configured to determine the optical axis misalignment based on a comparison between a location of the detected light-receiving region(fig. 3 part of the the dotted square correspond to unirradiated region ) corresponding to the unirradiated region and a location of the reference light-receiving region(solid square) corresponding to the location of occurrence of the light intensity unevenness.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8, 9, 11 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/HOVHANNES BAGHDASARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645