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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 01/30/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Combination of arts D1 and D3 explicitly teach the limitations of amended claims (see the mapping bellow).
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) 10 and claims bellow is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 20200278426 in view of D3 US 20180301875 A1.
Regarding claims bellow D1 teaches
1. A surface emitting laser device comprising a surface emitting section having a light emitting elements arranged on a substrate(fig. 3 and fig. 5 or fig. 7 ), wherein some of the light emitting elements are used as light receiving elements.(fig. 3 with fig. 7 or 8)
the light emitting elements are arranged in a first direction and a second direction intersecting each other to form a plurality of columns in the second direction,(fig. 38)
the light emitting elements are classified into light emitting element groups each including two or more of the light emitting elements arranged in a common column,(3806)[0155]
the light emitting elements included in a light emitting element group that does not emit light are used as the light receiving elements, and(3808) [0155]
the light emitting elements used as the light receiving elements are supplied with a reverse bias voltage when receiving light.[0155]
but does not teach while D3 teaches
the light emitting element groups are sequentially caused to emit light in a time-shifted manner column by column,[0023]
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 D3 in order to scan the FOV line by line.
2. The surface emitting laser device according to claim 1, further comprising an optical system that outputs the light emitted from the surface emitting section, wherein the plurality of light emitting elements includes:
a first element that emits light; and
a second element that receives light which is the light emitted from the first element and reflected by the optical system.(fig. 8)
3. The surface emitting laser device according to claim 2, wherein a forward bias voltage is supplied to the first element, and a reverse bias voltage is supplied to the second element.(fig. 39 [0157])
4. The surface emitting laser device according to claim 3, wherein a cathode of the first element and a cathode of the second element are connected in common(fig. 39), a power supply voltage is supplied to an anode of the first element(fig. 39), and
a signal corresponding to a received light amount is output from an anode of the second element.(fig. 39 implicit)
11. The surface emitting laser device according to claim 1, wherein some light emitting elements(4102) out of the plurality of light emitting elements are test light emitting elements(open detector element), the test light emitting elements are arranged at a different place on the substrate from light emitting elements other than the some light emitting elements, and(fig. 42)
the test light emitting elements are used as the light receiving elements.[0159]
Claim(s) 5, 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 and D3.
Regarding claim 8 D1 teaches
8. The surface emitting laser device according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of light emitting elements is arranged in a first direction and a second direction intersecting each other on the substrate, (fig. 41)and
four light emitting elements at corner(segment 4002) out of the plurality of light emitting elements are used as the light receiving elements.
But does not explicitly teach four elements at four corners.
Although does not teach 4 elements at 4 corners just placing four units presented in fig. 41 together with minor rotation will bring to the invention by Applicant and therefore it is just matter of multiplication and arrangement and does not involve any inventive step.
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 in order to provide larger array which performs same function as required in D1.
Although regarding claim 5 D1 does not explicitly teach
5. The surface emitting laser device according to claim 4, further comprising a light source driving section that is connected to the cathode of the first element and the cathode of the second element and switches whether or not to cause a current corresponding to an emitted light intensity to flow to the first element.
It is just a matter of the simple switching configuration of the fig. 39. Fig. 39 does not include any switch and system operates in both transmitter and receiver mode . but art by D1 explicitly teaches that some cells can operate only in receive mode while others on transmit mode(fig. 42) and therefore placing switch which would control the operation by choosing in which to operate is just obvious modification well known in the art and commonly performed in electrical engineering .
Claim(s) 6, 12 and claims bellow is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 and D3 further in view of D2 US 20120038903 A1.
Regarding claims bellow D1 teaches
12. An electronic apparatus comprising:
a surface emitting section having a plurality of
light emitting elements arranged on a substrate;*fig. 42(
an optical system configured to output light emitted from the surface emitting section(fig. 8); and
a control section that controls light intensities of the plurality of light emitting elements,(driver IC fig. 3)
wherein the plurality of light emitting elements includes a first element that emits light(VCSEL), and a second element(PD fig. 3) that receives light, which is the light emitted from the first element and reflected by the optical system, and(fig. 5, 7, 8)
but does not teach
the control section controls a light intensity of the first element on a basis of an intensity of the light received by the second element.
D2 teaches
the control section controls a light intensity of the first element on a basis of an intensity of the light received by the second element(abstract)
13. The electronic apparatus according to claim 12, further comprising an amount-of-light signal generation circuit that generates an amount-of-light signal indicating the intensity of the light received by the second element, wherein the control section controls light intensity of the first element on a basis of the amount- of-light signal.(abstract)
14. The electronic apparatus according to claim 13, further comprising a current source that variably controls a current flowing through the first element when the first element is caused to emit light, wherein the control section adjusts the current of the current source on a basis of the amount-of-light signal.(abstract obvious )
15. The electronic apparatus according to claim 13, further comprising a light source driving section that controls whether or not to cause the first element to emit light, wherein the control section stops the light emission of the first element in a case where the amount- of-light signal exceeds a predetermined reference amount.[0022]
6. The surface emitting laser device according to claim 5, wherein the light source driving section variably controls a current flowing through the first element when the first element is caused to emit light on a basis of an amount-of-light signal indicating a light intensity of the light received by the second element. (abstarct)
7. The surface emitting laser device according to claim 2, further comprising a voltage conversion circuit that is connected between the anode of the second element and a reference voltage node and generates a voltage signal corresponding to an intensity of the light received by the second element.(abstract implicit as transmitter intensity adjusted based on feedback from receiver)
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 control level of illumination of the scene.
16. The electronic apparatus according to claim 12, further comprising a reference signal generation circuit that generates a reference signal indicating a timing at which light is received by the second element.D1(lidar inherent tof is calculated [0002])/D2[0016]
17. The electronic apparatus according to claim 16, further comprising:
a light receiving element that receives reflected light which is the light emitted from the first element and is reflected by an object; and[0002]
a time measuring section that detects a time[0002]
difference between a time at which the light receiving element receives the reflected light and a time at which the first element emits light on a basis of a light receiving signal output from the light receiving element and the reference signal.[0002](tof is calculated)
19. The electronic apparatus according to claim 12, further comprising:
a first semiconductor device including the surface
emitting section; and(fig. 3 vcsel setion)
a second semiconductor device(driver IC section) including the control section, wherein the optical system is arranged on a light output surface side of the first semiconductor device.(fig. 3, 7, 8)
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