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 .
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed on 02/11/2026 has been entered and accepted.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 and 11 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. A new rejection has been made over Clement (US 5653900 A) in view of Carberry (US 20170045706 A1) and Florez (US 20230166529 A1).
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) 1-9, 11-13, and 15-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Clement (US 5653900 A) in view of Carberry (US 20170045706 A1) and Florez (US 20230166529 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Clement (US 5653900 A) teaches a laser processing apparatus (Figure 7) comprising:
a light emitter to emit laser light (Column 13 Lines 5-7, source 44 of laser radiation configured to output a laser);
a light scanner (multi-faceted mirror 102 as well as first and second mirrors 68 and 70) to scan a workpiece (moving body 26) in a scanning direction with the laser light emitted from the light emitter, to process the workpiece (Column 6 Lines 28-31, beam emerging from the heat unit 63 may be moved in any desired direction by simultaneous movement of the first and second mirrors 68 and 70; any desired direction); and
a conveyor (conveyor belt 16) to convey the workpiece to a scanning area scanned by the light scanner in a conveying direction orthogonal to the scanning direction, a longitudinal direction of the scanning area being in the scanning direction (Figure 1 Column 4 Lines 61 – Column 5 Line 5, body of material is transported to the laser marking station by the conveyor belt and enters the protective housing wherein the marking apparatus 10 is located; the conveyor conveys the workpiece is a direction orthogonal to “any desired direction” as taught above),
Clement fails to explicitly teach:
wherein the light scanner performs scanning with the scanning direction as a main scanning direction and the conveying direction as a sub-scanning direction, and
wherein a resolution of the laser processing apparatus in the main scanning direction is higher than a resolution of the laser processing apparatus in the sub-scanning direction.
Carberry (US 20170045706 A1) a system and method for marking at high speed, wherein
wherein the light scanner performs scanning with the scanning direction as a main scanning direction (Figures 5 and 7A-7B Paragraphs 46-47 and 61, laser scanner printing on various spots vertically along a column through use of a polygonal shaped mirror 132) and the conveying direction as a sub-scanning direction (Figures 7A-7B Paragraph 61, the cable being moved such that the laser beam is moved to a different positions or print columns), and
wherein a resolution of the laser processing apparatus in the main scanning direction is higher than a resolution of the laser processing apparatus in the sub-scanning direction (Figures 8A-8B Paragraph 56, laser formed symbol 156 is formed from a series of laser along a column by a plurality of formed stripes or bands which overlap each other and wherein there is clearly space between the various columns; Paragraph 62, modulator 172 is controlled by controller 120 such as that only odd or even columns are printed to accommodate various line speeds)
It would have thus been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Clement with Carberry and have the deflector reciprocally scan the scanning area in the workpiece with the laser light across columns. This would have been done to form various types of characters or symbols on the container at high rates of speed (Carberry Paragraph 49).
While the Office does not concede the fact, the applicant may argue that the use of elongated dots such as to facilitate stripes or bands would not inherently constitute a higher resolution. However, Florez (US 20230166529 A1) teaches a marking method for a receptacle moved along a conveying path (Florez Paragraph 61) wherein spots of the laser on the receptacle along a straight-line segment overlap adjacent spots of the laser such as to appear continuous to the human eye (Florez Figure 5 Paragraph 19). It would have thus been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Clement with Florez and have the stripes or bands formed be formed of overlapping adjacent laser spots along the bottle. This would have been done such the line appears to be continuous to the human eye through high resolution marking (Florez Paragraphs 9 and 19).
Under this modification, since the stripes along each column are formed of a plurality of overlapping dots (Florez Figure 5 Paragraph 19) and there is a clear gap between each column (Carberry Figures 8A and 8B), the resolution of the laser processing apparatus along the main processing direction would be higher than that in the sub-scanning direction. The Office notes that Paragraph 62 of Carberry teaches of skipping columns based on the speed of the object which would facilitate a gap forming between the stripes.
Regarding claim 2, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:
the conveying direction is in a horizontal direction (Figures 1-2, conveyor 18 is directed in a horizontal plane), the scanning direction is in a vertical direction (Column 6 Lines 28-31, beam emerging from the heat unit 63 may be moved in any desired direction by simultaneous movement of the first and second mirrors 68 and 70; any desired direction can be vertical direction; Figure 7, the multi-faceted/polygonal mirror clearly rotated perpendicular to the direction of conveyance and in the vertical direction), and a longitudinal direction of the workpiece is in the vertical direction (Figure 2, bottle 26 extends in a vertical direction which is orthogonal to the conveyor direction).
Carberry further teaches:
the conveying direction is in a horizontal direction (Figure 5, scanning direction is perpendicular to the scanning direction) and the scanning direction is in a vertical direction (Figures 5 and 7A-7B Paragraphs 46-47 and 61, laser scanner printing on various spots vertically along a column through use of a polygonal shaped mirror 132)
It would have been obvious for the same motivation as claim 1.
Regarding claim 3, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 1.
Carberry further teaches:
light scanner is further to scan the workpiece with the laser light with a certain interval in the conveying direction to form an aggregate of minute dots on the workpiece with the certain interval between the minute dots adjacent to each other interval between the minute dots adjacent to each other (Paragraph 36, dot arrays 44 formed at spaced intervals from each along the outer surface of the jacket is formed; Paragraph 49, marking system 112 is used to form symbols or characters).
It would have been obvious for the same motivation as claim 1.
Regarding claim 4, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 3.
Carberry further teaches:
the aggregate of the minute dots forms a character string (Figure 1 Paragraph 49, marking system 112 is used to form symbols or characters).
It would have been obvious for the same motivation as claim 1.
Regarding claim 5, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 4.
Carberry further teaches:
the light scanner is to form multiple sets of the character string in the scanning direction on the workpiece, the multiple sets of the character string are at a certain interval in the conveying direction (Figure 1 Paragraph 49, marking system 112 is used to form symbols or characters; Paragraph 35, marking arrangement may be repeated at intervals along the entire length of the cable).
It would have been obvious for the same motivation as claim 1.
Regarding claim 6, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:
the light scanner includes a deflector (Figure 7, head unit 64 as well as multi-faceted mirror 102),
Carberry further teaches:
the light scanner includes a deflector (Figure 5 Paragraph 46, laser marking device 116 comprising mirror 132), and the deflector is configured to reciprocally scan the scanning area in the workpiece with the laser light (Figure 7A Paragraph 61, laser scanners reciprocally scan the scanning area in the number of positions/positions p1-p10 or print columns per unit of time).
It would have been obvious for the same motivation as claim 1.
Regarding claim 7, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein:
the deflector is scannable around a first scan axis and a second scan axis directed in a different direction with the first scan axis (Column 6 Lines 28-31, beam emerging from the heat unit 63 may be moved in any desired direction by simultaneous movement of the first and second mirrors 68 and 70; any desired direction can be vertical direction; Figure 3, two mirrors 68 and 70 directed at different angles would be capable of being scannable around two arbitrary axis).
Regarding claim 8, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein:
the deflector is to:
scan the workpiece in the conveying direction around the first scan axis (Column 6 Lines 28-31, beam emerging from the heat unit 63 may be moved in any desired direction by simultaneous movement of the first and second mirrors 68 and 70; Column 6 Lines 23-28, beam is incident such as a result of reflection from the first mirror and is movable in such a way such as to cause the reflected beam to move in a horizontal plane), and scan the workpiece in the scanning direction around the second scan axis (Column 6 Lines 28-31, beam emerging from the heat unit 63 may be moved in any desired direction by simultaneous movement of the first and second mirrors 68 and 70; any desired direction can be vertical direction; Column 6 Lines 17-23, reflecting surfaces cause the beam to move in a vertical plane).
Regarding claim 9, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 7.
Carberry further teaches:
a scanning frequency of the deflector in the scanning direction around the second scan axis is faster than a scanning frequency of the deflector in the conveying direction around the first scan axis (Figures 7A-7B Paragraph 61, laser scanners reciprocally scan the scanning area in the number of positions/positions p1-p10 or print columns per unit of time which means that the frequency in the conveying direction is one while the frequency in the scanning direction the number of times it takes it fill up all positions p1-p10 in the scanning area at each time; number of positions can be adjusted per unit of time wherein it is clear that per unit of time the laser is moved through a larger length vertically through P1-P2 compared with between the next horizontal spot which means that the frequency and speed is faster in the scanning direction compared with the conveying direction).
It would have been obvious for the same motivation as claim 1.
Regarding claim 11, Clement (US 5653900 A) teaches a laser processing method (Figure 7) comprising:
emitting laser light (Column 13 Lines 5-7, source 44 of laser radiation configured to output a laser);
scanning a workpiece (moving body 26) in a scanning direction with the laser light by emitting to process the workpiece (Column 6 Lines 28-31, beam emerging from the heat unit 63 may be moved in any desired direction by simultaneous movement of the first and second mirrors 68 and 70; any desired direction); and
conveying the workpiece to a scanning area scanned by the scanning in a conveying direction orthogonal to the scanning direction, a longitudinal direction of the scanning area is in the scanning direction (Figure 1 Column 4 Lines 61 – Column 5 Line 5, body of material is transported to the laser marking station by the conveyor belt and enters the protective housing wherein the marking apparatus 10 is located; the conveyor conveys the workpiece is a direction orthogonal to “any desired direction” as taught above),
Clement fails to explicitly teach:
wherein the scanning is performed with the scanning direction as a main scanning direction and the conveying direction as a sub-scanning direction, and
wherein a resolution in the main scanning direction is higher than a resolution in the sub-scanning direction
Carberry (US 20170045706 A1) a system and method for marking at high speed, wherein
wherein the scanning is performed with the scanning direction as a main scanning direction (Figures 5 and 7A-7B Paragraphs 46-47 and 61, laser scanner printing on various spots vertically along a column through use of a polygonal shaped mirror 132) and the conveying direction as a sub-scanning direction (Figures 7A-7B Paragraph 61, the cable being moved such that the laser beam is moved to a different positions or print columns), and
wherein a resolution in the main scanning direction is higher than a resolution in the sub-scanning direction (Figures 8A-8B Paragraph 56, laser formed symbol 156 is formed from a series of laser along a column by a plurality of formed stripes or bands which overlap each other and wherein there is clearly space between the various columns; Paragraph 62, modulator 172 is controlled by controller 120 such as that only odd or even columns are printed to accommodate various line speeds)
It would have thus been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Clement with Carberry and have the deflector reciprocally scan the scanning area in the workpiece with the laser light across columns. This would have been done to form various types of characters or symbols on the container at high rates of speed (Carberry Paragraph 49).
While the Office does not concede the fact, the applicant may argue that the use of elongated dots such as to facilitate stripes or bands would not inherently constitute a higher resolution. However, Florez (US 20230166529 A1) teaches a marking method for a receptacle moved along a conveying path (Florez Paragraph 61) wherein spots of the laser on the receptacle along a straight-line segment overlap adjacent spots of the laser such as to appear continuous to the human eye (Florez Figure 5 Paragraph 19). It would have thus been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Clement with Florez and have the stripes or bands formed be formed of overlapping adjacent laser spots along the bottle. This would have been done such the line appears to be continuous to the human eye through high resolution marking (Florez Paragraphs 9 and 19).
Under this modification, since the stripes along each column are formed of overlapping dots and there is a clear gap between each column (Carberry Figures 8A and 8B), the resolution of the laser processing apparatus along the main processing direction would be higher than that in the sub-scanning direction. The Office notes that Paragraph 62 of Carberry teaches of skipping columns based on the speed of the object which would facilitate a gap forming between the stripes.
Regarding claim 12, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:
the light scanner is configured to scan the workpiece with the laser light in a longitudinal direction of the workpiece (Column 6 Lines 28-31, beam emerging from the heat unit 63 may be moved in any desired direction by simultaneous movement of the first and second mirrors 68 and 70; longitudinal direction of the workpiece is included as part of any desired direction).
Regarding claim 13, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 11.
The Office notes that the length of the scanning area is an area which one of ordinary skill in the art would find obvious to adjust the size of based on the desired marking output. As such, having “a scanning area in the scanning direction” be “longer than a length of the scanning area in the conveying direction” would be a matter of obvious engineering choice. Furthermore, having scanning areas which have a longer vertical length than a horizontal length is well known in the art of laser marking containers as evidenced by the sub areas seen in Figure 3 of VOGLER (US 20110261140 A1).
Regarding claim 15, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 11, further comprising:
detecting the workpiece conveyed by the conveying (Column 11 Lines 49-53, heat unit and lens assembly 76 are returned to starting positions after marking and before marking of the next mark; Column 11 Lines 54-57, beam reflected from the first mirror 68 travels in a direction parallel to the conveyor belt before being reflected toward the moving body); and
deflecting the laser light in the conveying direction before processing the workpiece (Column 11 Lines 49-53, heat unit and lens assembly 76 are returned to starting positions after marking and before marking of the next mark; Column 3 Lines 47-54, laser irradiates the point of intersection which is a calculated position based on a known distance; laser light would move both towards and away in the conveying direction during the processing of the previous workpiece before processing the current workpiece); and,
deflecting the laser light to a start position to process the workpiece (Column 11 Lines 49-53, heat unit and lens assembly 76 are returned to starting positions after marking and before marking of the next mark; Column 3 Lines 47-54, laser irradiates the point of intersection which is a calculated position based on a known distance), and
determining a start timing to start processing the workpiece based on a position of the workpiece detected by the detecting (Column 3 Lines 47-54, high energy density beam is actuated at a predetermine time after the moving body passes a portion a known distance from the point of intersection).
Regarding claim 16, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:
the light scanner includes a deflector (first and second galvanometers 72/74 and their associated mirrors 68/70), and the deflector is scannable around a first scan axis and a second scan axis directed in a different direction with the first scan axis (Column 6 Lines 28-31, beam emerging from the heat unit 63 may be moved in any desired direction by simultaneous movement of the first and second mirrors 68 and 70; any desired direction can be vertical direction; Figure 3, two mirrors 68 and 70 directed at different angles would be capable of being scannable around two arbitrary axis).
Regarding claim 17, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 16, wherein:
the deflector scans the workpiece in the conveying direction around the first scan axis, and scans the workpiece in the scanning direction around the second scan axis (Column 6 Lines 28-31, beam emerging from the heat unit 63 may be moved in any desired direction by simultaneous movement of the first and second mirrors 68 and 70; any desired direction can be vertical direction; Figure 3, two mirrors 68 and 70 directed at different angles would be capable of being scannable around two arbitrary axis).
Regarding claim 18, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 16, wherein:
the processing of the workpiece changes a surface property of the workpiece by one of ablation, melting (Column 5 Lines 54-58, laser radiation of a sufficient energy density causing areas of the surface impinged thereby to melt leaving a resulting mark), crystallization, or foaming.
Regarding claim 19, Clement teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:
the workpiece is a container body (glass bottle 26)
Carberry further teaches:
the workpiece is a container body held horizontally during processing (Figures 1 and 4-5 Paragraph 30, cable 10 provides structure and protection to optical fibers which is held and moved horizontally during laser processing).
It would have been obvious for the same motivation as claim 1.
Regarding claim 20, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 1.
a detector to detect the workpiece (Figure 1 Column 5 Lines 6-26, sensing module 12 which detects the passage of the body to be marked along the conveyor belt), wherein the light scanner deflects the laser light to a start position to process the workpiece based on a position of the workpiece detected by the detector (Column 11 Lines 49-53, heat unit and lens assembly 76 are returned to starting positions after marking and before marking of the next mark; Column 3 Lines 47-54, laser irradiates the point of intersection which is a calculated position based on a known distance by the sensing module 12).
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Clement (US 5653900 A) in view of Carberry (US 20170045706 A1) and Florez (US 20230166529 A1) as applied to claim 8 above, and further in view of VOGLER (US 20110261140 A1).
Regarding claim 10, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 8.
Clement as modified fails to explicitly teach:
a scanning speed of the deflector in the conveying direction around the first scan axis is slower than a conveying speed of the workpiece by the conveyor.
VOGLER (US 20110261140 A1) teaches a device and process for marking a moving object by laser, wherein:
a scanning speed of the deflector in the conveying direction around the first scan axis is slower than a conveying speed of the workpiece by the conveyor (Paragraph 61, position of laser while marking is in process is checked and the conveying speed is controlled depending on whether the scanning speed of the laser beam is too fast or too slow compared to the conveying speed and is then adjusted such as to fall into sub areas at the correct timing; scanning speed of deflector is purposefully controlled to be just slower than the conveying speed as to move to different sub areas which are position from right to left or the opposite direction of the conveying direction and further the laser beam scanning speed is expected to sometimes be especially slow when compared to the conveying speed).
It would have thus been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Clement with VOGLER and have the scanning speed of the deflector in the conveying direction be slower than a conveying speed of the workpiece by the conveyor. This would have been done such that the laser beam has sufficient time to properly mark all the objects while continuously moving the conveyor (VOGLER Paragraphs 9-15).
Claim(s) 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Clement (US 5653900 A) in view of Carberry (US 20170045706 A1) and Florez (US 20230166529 A1) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of VOGLER (US 20110261140 A1).
Regarding claim 14, Clement as modified teaches the laser processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:
a detector to detect the workpiece conveyed by the conveyor (Figure 1 Column 5 Lines 6-26, sensing module 12 which detects the passage of the body to be marked along the conveyor belt): and
circuitry (computer 90) to control the light scanner (Column 8 Lines 1-10, computer 90 controls the first and second galvanometers to produce the desired mark; Claim 9, a first controller for activating the energy source at a calculated time),
wherein the light scanner includes a deflector (first and second galvanometers 72/74 and their associated mirrors 68/70) to:
deflect the laser light in the conveying direction before the light scanner processes the workpiece (Column 11 Lines 49-53, heat unit and lens assembly 76 are returned to starting positions after marking and before marking of the next mark; Column 11 Lines 54-57, beam reflected from the first mirror 68 travels in a direction parallel to the conveyor belt before being reflected toward the moving body); and,
deflect the laser light to a start position to process the workpiece (Column 11 Lines 49-53, heat unit and lens assembly 76 are returned to starting positions after marking and before marking of the next mark; Column 3 Lines 47-54, laser irradiates the point of intersection which is a calculated position based on a known distance), and
the circuitry determines a start timing to start processing the workpiece based on a position of the workpiece detected by the detector (Column 3 Lines 47-54, high energy density beam is actuated at a predetermine time after the moving body passes a portion a known distance from the point of intersection).
Clement fails to explicitly teach:
circuitry to control the conveyor,
VOGLER (US 20110261140 A1) teaches a device and process for marking a moving object by a laser, comprising:
circuitry to control the conveyor (Paragraph 56, servo controller controls the speed of the line)
It would have thus been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Clement with VOGLER and have circuitry control the conveyor. This would have been done such that the laser beam has sufficient time to properly mark all the objects while continuously moving the conveyor (VOGLER Paragraphs 9-15).
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FRANKLIN JEFFERSON WANG whose telephone number is (571)272-7782. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10AM-6PM (E.S.T).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ibrahime Abraham can be reached at (571) 270-5569. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/F.J.W./Examiner, Art Unit 3761
/IBRAHIME A ABRAHAM/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3761