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 .
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 subject matter of claim 4 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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 4 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Limitation “wherein the laser sensor or the cover is provided on the traveling body such that a minimum incident
angle of the laser light incident on the cover during rotation of the laser light decreases with an increase in a distance between the laser sensor and the cover.
“ is unclear. Nothing in claims indicate that the distance between sensor or cover can be changed, also it is unclear how minimum incident angle decreases(it is already minimum).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1 and claims bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20180164829 A1.
Regarding claim 1 D1 teaches
1. (Original) A self-propelled device comprising:
a traveling body that is driven by a wheel;(fig. 3 21)
a laser sensor(fig. 5) that emits laser light while rotating the laser light around the laser sensor and receives reflected light of the laser light to output two-dimensional distance data representing a distance to an object located around the laser sensor for each angle around the laser sensor; [0029]and
a controller that controls traveling of the traveling body on a basis of the two- dimensional distance data output from the laser sensor,[0038] with [0007] and [0002]
wherein the laser sensor is provided on the traveling body such that a scan plane that is a region through which the laser light passes during rotation of the laser light has a predetermined angle with respect to a horizontal plane.(fig. 6)
3. (Currently Amended) The self-propelled device according to claim 1
further comprising a cover(41) that accommodates the laser sensor(4),(implicit the sensor is behind optical window)
wherein the laser sensor or the cover is provided on the traveling body such that an incident angle of the laser light with respect to the cover is greater than 0 degrees and smaller than 90 degrees.(fig. 4 with fig. 6)
8. (Currently Amended) The self-propelled device according to claim 1 , wherein the traveling body includes three or more drive wheels.(fig. 1)
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) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 in view of Domel (see the NPL reference in IDS).
Regarding claim 2 D1 does not teach but Domel teaches
2. (Original) The self-propelled device according to claim 1, further comprising an arm robot provided on the traveling body,
wherein the laser sensor is provided on the traveling body such that the scan plane includes a movement range of the arm robot.(fig. 3 4 and page 5)
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 in view of D2 US 20180236654 A1.
Although D1 does not explicitly teach
5. (Currently Amended) The self-propelled device according to claim any one of claims 1 , wherein the controller sequentially acquires the two-dimensional distance data from the laser sensor while rotating the traveling body about a rotation axis in a vertical direction, and executes processing of generating three-dimensional data representing a space around the traveling body on a basis of the two-dimensional distance data that has been sequentially acquired.
It is just a matter of obvious modification commonly practiced in the field of LIDARs in order to achieve 3D imaging around the object as described in D2 [0025 0026] where head is rotated in order to achieve 3D coverage.
Although D1 does not explicitly teach
6. (Original) The self-propelled device according to claim 5, wherein the processing of generating the three-dimensional data is executed on a basis of a condition that the self-propelled device is included in a preset region.
7. (Currently Amended) The self-propelled device according to claim 5
wherein the self-propelled device is capable of communicating with a user terminal for operating the self-propelled device, and
the processing of generating the three-dimensional data is executed on a basis of reception of an execution command based on an operation for executing the processing from the user terminal.
Turning on or of by user can be simple operation of claim 7 and therefore can be considered a design choice , similarly operating robot in factory also can be considered design choices and therefore It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by *** with teaching by D1 in order to operate the robot in the factory environment.
Conclusion
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/HOVHANNES BAGHDASARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645