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 .
Prosecution Reopened
In view of the appeal brief filed on 04/02/2026, PROSECUTION IS HEREBY REOPENED. New grounds of rejection are set forth below.
To avoid abandonment of the application, appellant must exercise one of the following two options:
(1) file a reply under 37 CFR 1.111 (if this Office action is non-final) or a reply under 37 CFR 1.113 (if this Office action is final); or,
(2) initiate a new appeal by filing a notice of appeal under 37 CFR 41.31 followed by an appeal brief under 37 CFR 41.37. The previously paid notice of appeal fee and appeal brief fee can be applied to the new appeal. If, however, the appeal fees set forth in 37 CFR 41.20 have been increased since they were previously paid, then appellant must pay the difference between the increased fees and the amount previously paid.
A Supervisory Patent Examiner (SPE) has approved of reopening prosecution by signing below:
/VLADIMIR MAGLOIRE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3648
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pp. 5-6, filed 04/02/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-4, 6, and 9-11 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Shpater in view of Litvak, with all teachings from Steiner removed. As argued by the applicant, modifying the ultrasonic emitters of Steiner with the time-of-flight sensor of Litvak renders Steiner unsatisfactory for its intended purpose, as does modifying Steiner with the emitter locations of Shpater. Therefore, a new grounds of rejection not relying on any teachings from Steiner is presented, rendering the applicant’s arguments moot.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-4, 6, and 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shpater (US 2013/0240739 A1) in view of Litvak (US 2020/0241135 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Shpater discloses (note: what Shpater does not disclose is struck through),
A motion detector for a security system (abs. “An infra-red motion detector for monitoring motion in a monitored space”), the motion detector comprising:
a housing, including a window or lens (fig. 5, unnumbered housing includes lenses 120, 105);
a primary sensing system configured to detect movement of a person within a monitored environment (fig. 5, motion detector 110. See also para. 0034, “Without limiting the invention, FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate a motion detector having two infra-red sensors 110. Motion detector 100 can include one or many passive infra-red sensors 110.”); and
an ancillary sensing system configured to detect masking of the primary sensing system (para. 0044, “In operation, if light tamper sensors 124 detect an absence, or a dimmed amount, of light falling thereupon, an alert signal is tripped possibly also signaling probable tampering with the motion sensor 100”), the ancillary sensing system comprising
an optical (fig. 5, optical tamper sensor 124 and emitters 122 and 150); wherein the optical
a first ancillary emitter configured to emit light into the monitored environment without passing through the window or lens (fig. 5, emitter 150 emits light into monitored environment without passing through the lenses 105, 120);
a second ancillary emitter configured to emit light onto an outside surface of the window or lens (fig. 5, emitter 122 emits light onto anti-mask lens 120);
a receiver provided within the housing of the motion detector, and behind the window or lens (fig. 5, tamper sensor 124. See also para. 0044, “The tamper sensor 124 can use a photodiode, phototransistor or any other suitable light detector element.”),
the receiver configured to receive light emitted by the first ancillary emitter after reflection by an object within the monitored environment (para. 0049, “FIG. 5 shows an embodiment having a NIR LED optics 150 that projects external light in front of the detector with a view to detect the presence of an object close to the PIR lens. When an attempt is made to mask or otherwise tamper with the detector, NIR light reflected by the object from the beam emitted by source 150, enters the PIR lens and is detected internally by the NIR tamper sensor.”),
the receiver configured to receive light emitted by the second emitter without reflection by an object within the monitored environment (para. 0039, “An external light source 122 illustrated in FIG. 5 is directed towards the window 104/optical element 106 at a low angle wherein the refractive patches 120 cause light from the external light source 122 to be redirected, at least in part, towards a corresponding optical tamper sensor 124.”).
Litvak et al. discloses,
…the ancillary sensing system comprising an optical time-of-flight sensor (Litvak et al., para. 0014, “The second sensor measures absolute distance independent of target reflectance by measuring the time that light transmitted by the sensor takes to travel to the nearest object and reflect back to the sensor (Time-of-Flight).”)…
Shpater and Litvak are both analogous to the claimed invention because they teach motion detector devices with anti-masking elements. It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the ancillary sensing system of Shpater with the optical time-of-flight sensor of Litvak. The sensing system of Shpater detects whether an object is in close enough proximity to the device to reflect NIR light from source 150, but does not detect how close the object is. The optical time-of-flight sensor of Litvak would allow the proximity/anti-mask detector of Shpater to determine how close a detected object is to the sensor. The combination of the optical time-of-flight sensor of Litvak with the ancillary sensing system of Shpater would have the predictable result of enabling detection of the distance of potential masking objects, increasing the information available to the device and the user regarding potential attempts at masking.
Regarding claim 2, Shpater in view of Litvak teaches the motion detector according to claim 1. Shpater further teaches,
…wherein the primary sensing system comprises one of an infrared sensor, a microwave sensor and an ultrasound sensor (para. 0034, “Without limiting the invention, FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate a motion detector having two infra-red sensors 110. Motion detector 100 can include one or many passive infra-red sensors 110.”).
Regarding claim 3, Shpater in view of Litvak teaches the motion detector according to claim 1. Shpater further teaches,
…wherein the primary sensing system comprises a passive infrared sensor (para. 0001, “This invention relates to Passive infra-red (PIR) motion detectors and their lenses, as well as to apparatus and methods for detecting tampering therewith.”).
Regarding claim 4, Shpater in view of Litvak teaches the motion detector according to claim 1. Shpater further teaches (note: what Shpater does not teach is struck through),
…wherein the optical ancillary sensor comprises an infrared (para. 0044, “In accordance with some embodiments of the proposed solution, optical tamper sensors 124 are in addition to passive infra-red sensors 110. In accordance with these embodiments, tamper sensors 124 need not be limited to infra-red radiation in the human body emission range of 6 to 15 .mu.m and can therefore operate independently of passive infra-red sensors 110. Preferably, optical tamper sensors 124 do however need to be sensitive to wavelengths which are also blocked by the same blocking materials which block infra-red wavelengths in the human body emission range of 6 to 15 .mu.m. For example the external light source 122 and optical tamper sensors 124 can respectively emit and be sensitive to light having a wavelength content in the 850-900 nm range.”)
Litvak teaches,
…wherein the optical time-of- flight sensor comprises an infrared time of flight sensor (para. 0014, “The second sensor is an analyzing sensor that is used to then measure range. In one example, the analyzing sensor is a VL6180X sold by STMicroelectronics. This sensor measures absolute distance independent of target reflectance by measuring the time that light transmitted by the sensor takes to travel to the nearest object and reflect back to the sensor (Time-of-Flight). The VL6180X includes an infrared (IR) emitter, a range sensor, and an ambient light sensor.”).
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the infrared sensor of the ancillary sensing system of Shpater with the infrared optical time-of-flight sensor of Litvak. The sensing system of Shpater detects whether an object is in close enough proximity to the device to reflect light from source 150, but does not detect how close the object is. The optical time-of-flight sensor of Litvak would allow the proximity/anti-mask detector of Shpater to determine how close a detected object is to the sensor. The combination of the infrared optical time-of-flight sensor of Litvak with the ancillary sensing system of Shpater would have the predictable result of enabling detection of the distance of potential masking objects, increasing the information available to the device and the user regarding potential attempts at masking.
Regarding claim 6, Shpater in view of Litvak teaches the motion detector according to claim 1. Shpater further teaches,
…wherein the primary sensing system is disposed inside the housing and is configured to monitor the monitored environment through the window or lens (fig. 5, primary infrared sensor 110 monitors the environment through lens 105. The examiner notes that para. 0043 states that the optical patch 120 is printed or molded onto lens 106. See also para. 0002, “Such a detector typically includes an infra-red sensor element and an array of Fresnel lenslets or mirrored segments window opening to focus incident infra-red radiation onto the sensor element.” See also para. 0009, “Applicant has also discovered that integration of an anti-masking optical structure within the lenslet body between PIR lenslets does not adversely affect collection of IR light for motion detection.”).
Regarding claim 9, Shpater in view of Litvak teaches the motion detector according to claim 1. Shpater further teaches,
…wherein the second ancillary sensor comprises an emitter and a detector, wherein the emitter of the second ancillary sensor is configured to emit light directly through the window or lens to the detector of the second ancillary sensor (para. 0039, “An external light source 122 illustrated in FIG. 5 is directed towards the window 104/optical element 106 at a low angle wherein the refractive patches 120 cause light from the external light source 122 to be redirected, at least in part, towards a corresponding optical tamper sensor 124.”).
Regarding claim 10, Shpater in view of Litvak teaches the motion detector according to claim 9. Shpater further teaches,
…wherein the detector of the first ancillary sensor and the detector of the second ancillary sensor are the same detector (para. 0051, “In FIG. 5, the same single NIR detector 124 (per PIR lens section) is used to detect the proximity reflected NIR light, although it would be possible to use additional different detector. In the embodiment of FIG. 5, the detectors are positioned to receive light from LED 122 redirected by the optical patches 120. To use a single detector 124 for anti-masking and for proximity detection, the LED's 122 and 150 can be actuated at different times or using different frequencies so that a common detector can distinguish between anti-masking and proximity”).
Regarding claim 11, Shpater in view of Litvak teaches a motion detector according to claim 1. Shpater further teaches,
…wherein the motion detector is configured to take a first action responsive to detection of movement within the monitored environment by the primary sensor, and wherein the motion detector is configured to take a second action responsive to detection of masking of the first sensor by the ancillary sensing system (para. 0048, “A detection controller located on PCB 140 (see FIG. 2) processes signals output by both sensors 110/124 in monitoring the space. The detection controller detects incident light from the external light source and trips a tamper alarm in changes or failing detection, and further detects changes in passive infra-red radiation in the monitored space and trips an intrusion alarm upon detecting changes.” The examiner notes that the intrusion alarm upon detecting changes in passive IR radiation is the first action, and the tamper alarm in response to changes or failing detection is the second action).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Anna K Gosling whose telephone number is (571)272-0401. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday, 7:30-4:30 Eastern, Friday, 10:00-2:00 Eastern.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vladimir Magloire can be reached at (571) 270-5144. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Anna K. Gosling/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
/VLADIMIR MAGLOIRE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3648
Prosecution Insights