DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Applicant’s amendment dated 01/31/2023 has been received and entered. By the amendment, claims 1-10 and newly added claims 11-18 are now pending in the application.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the “mounting protrusion”, “mounting hole” must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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.
Claims 1-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Applicant’s submitted prior art, Yang et al., CN 111301556 A.
Regarding claim 1, Yang et al. disclose a quadruped robot (figs 1-8) [having an ultra-wide viewing angle] comprising:
. a robot body having an accommodating cavity (e.g., storage basket 2), a head (front side of the robot body) and a tail (back side of the robot body), and legs 5 mounted on the robot body
. wherein the legs 5 and a space under the robot body form a blind area between the robot abdomen and the ground (figs 1-2)
. the robot body, the head, the tail, the legs are equipped with [a wide-angle lens or a fisheye lens] a camera 7 capable of acquiring ground information or/and information of obstacles around the robot, and the camera is mounted to face downward or is mounted to tilt downward, so that the sight thereof can cover the blind area between the robot abdomen and the ground. (see fig. 2 and Example 1).
Yang et al., however, do not disclose an ultra-wide viewing angle or a fisheye lens equipped with the robot. It would have been an obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to employ an ultra-wide viewing angle (or a fisheye lens) over the Yang et al. robot body, since the examiner takes Office Notice of the equivalence of a camera and an ultra-wide viewing angle (or a fisheye lens) for their use in the display art and the selection of any of these known equivalents to capture an image would be within the level of ordinary skill in the art.
Re claims 2, 11 and 15, the modification to Yang et al. would result an apex of the wide-angle lens or the fisheye lens protrudes from a mounting surface therefor, and a viewing angle of same ranges from 130 degrees to 300 degrees (ultra-wide viewing angle functional).
Re claims 3, 12 and 16, wherein on the mounting surface, at least one protrusion for protecting the wide-angle lens or the fisheye lens is mounted around and close to the lens (Yang et al., fig. 2, mounting protrusion for mounting camera 7).
Re claims 4, 13 and 17, wherein a protrusion height of the protrusion (mounting protrusion) is greater than a protrusion height of the wide-angle lens or the fisheye lens (camera)(Yang et al., fig 2).
Re claims 5, 14 and 18, Yang et al. do not explicitly disclose the protrusion is one or more sets of rod or sheet structures, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to employ protrusions including one or more sets of rod or sheet structures, since it is known practice in the art for mounting purposes.
Re claim 6, wherein the wide-angle lens or the fisheye lens is a dual-or multi-eye vision fisheye depth camera, a structured light depth camera, or a TOF depth camera, a viewing angle of which is a hemispherical viewing angle would be known in the art.
Re claim 7, It would have been an obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to employ an ultra-wide viewing angle (or a fisheye lens) over the Yang et al. robot body, since the examiner takes Office Notice of the equivalence of a camera and an ultra-wide viewing angle (or a fisheye lens) for their use in the display art and the selection of any of these known equivalents to capture an image would be within the level of ordinary skill in the art.
Re claim 8, wherein a hole (groove 102) in communication with the accommodating cavity of the robot body is provided in or around the mounting hole (Yang et al., fig. 6).
Re claim 9, the modification to Yang et al. would result a plurality of wide-angle lenses or the fisheye lenses are provided and four legs are provided and mounted around the robot body (Yang et al., figs 1-2).
Re claim 10, the modification to Yang et al. would result fisheye lens over the Yang et al. robot body as claimed.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUNG T NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-2297. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 - 5:00.
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/DUNG T NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2871
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