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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
In accordance with MPEP 2106.04, each of Claims 1-6 has been analyzed to determine whether it is directed to any judicial exceptions. Each of independent Claims 1 and 3 recites at least one step or instruction for “an evaluation step of estimating the presence/absence of a defect of the additive- manufactured product using the evaluation data, wherein the evaluation data includes a luminance average value and a luminance standard deviation” which is grouped as a mental process in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III) or a certain method of organizing human activity in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II) or mathematical concept in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(I). The limitation of the evaluation step is considered a mental process because it involves a judgement which can, be broadest reasonable interpretated, be performed in the mind. Nothing in the claim elements precludes the step from being practically performed by the mind. Accordingly, claims 1 and 3 recite an abstract idea.
Specifically, claims 1 and 3 recite “an evaluation step of estimating the presence/absence of a defect of the additive-manufactured product using the evaluation data, wherein the evaluation data includes a luminance average value and a luminance standard” which, as presented above is an abstract idea.
Claim 1 recites the additional elements of “a luminance data acquisition step of acquiring luminance data of light emitted from a melt pool formed when the metal powder is melted and solidified and an evaluation data extraction step of extracting evaluation data from the luminance data.” These additional elements do not provide significantly more, as they which merely add extra solution activity to the judicial exception which are not indicative of the invention concept.
Similarly, Claim 3 recites the following additional elements “an additive manufacturing process including: a powder supply step of supplying metal powder, a manufacturing step of irradiating the metal powder with a heat source, melting and solidifying the metal powder, and manufacturing the additive-manufactured product, and a luminance data acquisition step of acquiring luminance data of light emitted from a melt pool formed when the metal powder is melted and an inspection process including an evaluation data extraction step of extracting evaluation data from the luminance data.” These additional elements do not provide significantly more, as they merely add extra solution activity to the judicial exception which are not indicative of the invention concept.
The extra solution activity as described above for Claims 1 and 3 does not add significantly more because they are simply an attempt to limit the abstract idea to a particular technological environment according to MPEP 2106.05(h). When viewed as a combination, these above-identified additional elements simply instruct the practitioner to implement the claimed functions with well-understood, routine and conventional activity specified at a high level of generality in a particular technological environment according to MPEP 2106.05(h). When viewed as whole, the above-identified additional elements do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claims amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself according to MPEP 2106.04(d)(2) and 2106.05(e). As such, there is no inventive concept sufficient to transform the claimed subject matter into a patent-eligible application as required by MPEP 2106.05.
Further, dependent Claims 2, 4, and 6 merely include limitations that either further define the abstract idea (and thus don’t make the abstract idea any less abstract) or amount to no more than generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field of use because they’re merely incidental or token additions to the claims that do not alter or affect how the claimed functions/steps are performed.
Accordingly, as indicated above, each of the above-identified claims recites an abstract idea as in MPEP 2106.04(a). Therefore, for at least the above reasons, none of the Claims 1-6 amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Accordingly, claims 1-6 are not patent eligible and rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
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 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jurg (US 2021/0078076 A1) in view of Matsuri (JP2002228594A):
Regarding Claim 1: A method for predicting a defect of an additive-manufactured product manufactured by melting and solidifying metal powder (“An additive manufacturing system and method is provided for fabricating 3D objects from successive layers of material” Abstract (wherein the “material is a powdered metal” [0027]) wherein the method includes a step to “locate potential consolidation defects” Abstract) the method comprising: a luminance data acquisition step of acquiring luminance data of light emitted from a melt pool formed when the metal powder is melted and solidified (“The laser or electron beam scan tracks across the powder are captured as image pixel data with the luminosity levels being indicative of the input energy and the material emissivity (incandescence, IR or UV radiation) with variance due to changes in focal position and material/energy interactions (i.e. reflectivity/absorption)” [0082]) ; an evaluation data extraction step of extracting evaluation data from the luminance data (the prior art further teaches that the evaluation data extraction step consists of collection via a ”processor” [0083]); and an evaluation step of estimating the presence/absence of a defect of the additive manufactured product using the evaluation data (“Following capture, the processor adjusts the image to maximize the contrast range before applying intensity and wavelength thresholds. Through the application of image thresholding with an appropriate intensity or wavelength based on the material being processed, differences relative to the reference image in the emitted energy indicate the presence of a defect or variance in applied energy or scan pattern”[0083])
Jurg does not explicitly teach that the evaluation data includes a luminance average value and a luminance standard deviation.
However, Matsuri does teach a method for predicting a defect (“state evaluation method…which can quantity the state of an object [in terms of quality]” Abstract) with an evaluation data extraction step of extracting evaluation data from the luminance data (“A step of irradiating a predetermined region of the device under test with light and receiving reflected light or transmitted light from the predetermined region to obtain luminance information” wherein the information constitutes data Claim 1) ; and an evaluation step (“evaluating” step Claim 5) of estimating the presence/absence of a defect using the evaluation data wherein the evaluation data includes a luminance average value and a luminance standard deviation (“In the method for evaluating the state of an object to be measured according to the present invention, in the step of calculating the variation coefficient, a luminance average and a standard deviation of the entire predetermined area are calculated based on a luminance value of each section, and the luminance average and the standard deviation are calculated. It may be characterized in that a variation coefficient is calculated based on the deviation. Further, in the device for evaluating the state of an object to be measured according to the present invention, the first calculating means calculates a luminance average and a standard deviation of the entire predetermined area based on the luminance value of each section, and based on the luminance average and the standard deviation. The variation coefficient may be calculated…In the first calculating means, a luminance average and a standard deviation of the entire predetermined area are calculated based on the luminance value of each section, and a variation coefficient is calculated based on the luminance average and the standard deviation” which are used in turn to establish the presence of a defect [0017])
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Jurg with the luminance average value and a luminance standard deviation of Matsuri in order “to provide a state evaluation method and a state evaluation device capable of quantifying the state of an object to be measured by expressing the evaluation of the state of the object to be measured as specific numerical values” [008])
Regarding Claim 2: Jurg as modified by Matsuri further teaches that the evaluation data extraction step (the evaluation step wherein “the processor adjusts the image to maximize the contrast range before applying intensity and wavelength thresholds. Through the application of image thresholding with an appropriate intensity or wavelength based on the material being processed, differences relative to the reference image in the emitted energy indicate the presence of a defect or variance in applied energy or scan pattern” [0083] Jurg) a coefficient of variation CV is calculated from the luminance average value and the luminance standard deviation, and in the evaluation step, the presence/absence of a defect of the additive-manufactured product is estimated using the coefficient of variation CV (“ variation coefficient is calculated based on the brightness average and the standard deviation” Matsuri Claim 6 which in turn is used to determine the presence of a defect) .
Regarding Claim 3: Jurg teaches a method for manufacturing an additive-manufactured product (“An additive manufacturing system and method is provided for fabricating 3D objects from successive layers of material” Abstract, the method comprising: an additive manufacturing process (“additive manufacturing… method” Abstract) including: a powder supply step of supplying metal powder (a step of “providing a layer of material in an unconsolidated form in a build chamber” [0020] wherein the “material is a powdered metal” [0027]), a manufacturing step of irradiating the metal powder with a heat source (the prior art further teaches that the manufacturing step includes exposing the area material to an “energy beam” [0025] which reads on the claim of irradiation with a heat source wherein the heat source is a “system is a selective laser sintering (SLS) system, a selective laser melting (SLM) system” [Claim 11] which provides irradiation) , melting and solidifying the metal powder (the prior art further teaches that the irradiation results in the power being “melted” [0014] and “consolidated”[0037]), and manufacturing the additive-manufactured product (the prior art further teaches that the result of the steps is a “additive” manufactured product[Abstract]), and a luminance data acquisition step of acquiring luminance data of light emitted from a melt pool formed when the metal powder is melted (“The laser or electron beam scan tracks across the powder are captured as image pixel data with the luminosity levels being indicative of the input energy and the material emissivity (incandescence, IR or UV radiation) with variance due to changes in focal position and material/energy interactions (i.e. reflectivity/absorption)” [0082]); and an inspection process (the prior art further teaches an inspection process via a “processor” [0038]) including an evaluation data extraction step of extracting evaluation data from the luminance data (the prior art further teaches that the evaluation data extraction step consists of collection via a ”processor” [0083]) and an evaluation step of estimating the presence/absence of a defect of the additive-manufactured product using the evaluation data (“Following capture, the processor adjusts the image to maximize the contrast range before applying intensity and wavelength thresholds. Through the application of image thresholding with an appropriate intensity or wavelength based on the material being processed, differences relative to the reference image in the emitted energy indicate the presence of a defect or variance in applied energy or scan pattern” [0083]).
Jurg does not explicitly teach that the evaluation data includes a luminance average value and a luminance standard deviation.
However, Matsuri does teach a method for predicting a defect (“state evaluation method…which can quantity the state of an object [in terms of quality]” Abstract) with an evaluation data extraction step of extracting evaluation data from the luminance data (“A step of irradiating a predetermined region of the device under test with light and receiving reflected light or transmitted light from the predetermined region to obtain luminance information” wherein the information constitutes data Claim 1) ; and an evaluation step (“evaluating” step Claim 5) of estimating the presence/absence of a defect using the evaluation data wherein the evaluation data includes a luminance average value and a luminance standard deviation (“In the method for evaluating the state of an object to be measured according to the present invention, in the step of calculating the variation coefficient, a luminance average and a standard deviation of the entire predetermined area are calculated based on a luminance value of each section, and the luminance average and the standard deviation are calculated. It may be characterized in that a variation coefficient is calculated based on the deviation. Further, in the device for evaluating the state of an object to be measured according to the present invention, the first calculating means calculates a luminance average and a standard deviation of the entire predetermined area based on the luminance value of each section, and based on the luminance average and the standard deviation. The variation coefficient may be calculated…In the first calculating means, a luminance average and a standard deviation of the entire predetermined area are calculated based on the luminance value of each section, and a variation coefficient is calculated based on the luminance average and the standard deviation” which are used in turn to establish the presence of a defect [0017])
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Jurg with the luminance average value and a luminance standard deviation of Matsuri in order “to provide a state evaluation method and a state evaluation device capable of quantifying the state of an object to be measured by expressing the evaluation of the state of the object to be measured as specific numerical values” [008])
Regarding Claim 4: Jurg as modified by Matsuri further teaches that in the evaluation data extraction step (the evaluation step wherein “the processor adjusts the image to maximize the contrast range before applying intensity and wavelength thresholds. Through the application of image thresholding with an appropriate intensity or wavelength based on the material being processed, differences relative to the reference image in the emitted energy indicate the presence of a defect or variance in applied energy or scan pattern” [0083] Jurg), a coefficient of variation CV is calculated from the luminance average value and the luminance standard deviation, and in the evaluation step, the presence/absence of the defect of the additive-manufactured product is estimated using coefficient of variation CV (“ variation coefficient is calculated based on the brightness average and the standard deviation” Matsuri Claim 6 which in turn is used to determine the presence of a defect) .
Regarding Claim 5: Jurg as modified by Matsuri further teaches that the method further comprising, in the inspection process (the prior art further teaches an inspection process via a “processor” [0038]), a selection step of determining whether to continue the additive manufacturing process (the prior art further teaches that the method includes a selection step which “may involve simply halting the build process to allow for operator intervention, re-scanning the defective layer, or enacting a pre-set response function altering the machine process parameters” [0085])
Regarding Claim 6: Jurg as modified by Matsuri further teaches that the method further comprising, in the inspection process (the prior art further teaches an inspection process via a “processor” [0038]), a selection step of determining whether to continue the additive manufacturing process (the prior art further teaches that the method includes a selection step which “may involve simply halting the build process to allow for operator intervention, re-scanning the defective layer, or enacting a pre-set response function altering the machine process parameters” [0085])
Conclusion
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/SOLAN OLIVA/Examiner, Art Unit 3761
/IBRAHIME A ABRAHAM/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3761