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 .
Specification
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because the legal phraseology such as “means’, or “comprises” or “comprising” often used in patent claims should be avoided in the abstract. A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6-8, 11-14 and 17-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2012-164580, in view of JP 2014-078533 both cited by applicant. Regarding claims 1 and 12, JP 2012-164580 discloses an induction heating cooker comprising an alarm (par. 0018, a display unit or audio output unit which can inform that boiling has occurred); a cooking plate (2, a top plate) including glass and a capacitive sensor panel (par. 0002, par.0009, and par. 0018, Figure 1). JP 2012-164580 also disclosed of arranging electrodes (7a, 7b) at a position closer to the outer circumference of a heater (3) and arranging electrode (7c) at a position farther than the electrodes (7a, 7b), and making it so that the electrodes (7a, 7b) have the highest detection sensitive for the occurrent of boiling over and the sensitivity successively decreases toward the rear so that a control circuit (13) detects the occurrent of boiling over on the basis of a threshold value of the amount change in capacitance set for each electrode, and upon detecting the occurrence of boiling over, notifies a user of the occurrence of boiling over via a notification means such as a display unit or an audio output unit (par. 0018, par. 0019, par. 0030, and par. 0042, Figure 2). However, JP 2012-164580 does not disclose a controller configured to: determine a reference position corresponding to a position of a cooking vessel based on a capacitance change of the cooking plate. JP 2014-078533 discloses a control circuit determines the position of a pot on a top plate through a relative comparison of the capacitance between each electrode measured by a capacitance measurement means and a predetermined potential (par. 0008). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to utilize in JP 2012-164580 a control circuit determines the position of a pot on a top plate through a relative comparison of the capacitance between each electrode measured by a capacitance measurement means and a predetermined potential as taught by JP 2014-078533 in order to provide heat to exact position of the pot on a top plate. Regarding claims 2 and 13, JP 2012-164580 discloses the electrodes (7a, 7b) that are closer to the heater (3) have a higher detection sensitivity for the occurrence of boiling over than the electrode (7c) that is farther from the heater (3, par. 0019, Figure 2). Regarding claims 3 and 14, JP 2012-164580 discloses a capacitance detection means (11) measures the capacitance between the electrode (7) and a predetermine potential, and the predetermine potential is referred to as an earth potential (or GND), but a placed object (pot 12) on the top plate (2) can be used as the predetermined potential, and the content of the pot (12), which is mainly water with a relative dielectric constant of 80, adheres to the top plate (2) on the electrode (7) when boiling over occurs, and thus, the capacitance between the electrode (7) and the earth potential increases rapidly, and it is possible to determine boiling over by examining the change in capacitance (par. 0014, par. 0016). Regarding claims 6 and 17, JP 2014-078533 discloses the control circuit (6) receives the capacitance between each electrode (3) measured by capacitance measurement circuit (7) and a pot (9) , perform relative comparison of the capacitance , and when the number of electrode (3) adjacent to each other and having a detected capacitance greater than a predetermined value is greater than a predetermined number, determines that the pot with a large bottom area has been put on (par. 0015). Regarding claims 7-8 and 18-19, JP 2014-078533 discloses a heating coil provided at the bottom of the top plate (8) is divided in two into an inner side (2a) and an outer side (2b), and a control circuit determines a position of a pot on the top plate via a relative comparison of the capacitance between each electrode measured by a capacitance measured means and a predetermined potential , and when the capacitance increases rapidly, determines that boiling over has occurred and stops the operation of a drive circuit (5) or controls the drive circuit (5) to reduce the current flowing to the heating coil (2, par. 0008, par. 0024, par. 0030, and Figures 2 and 10). Regarding claim 11, It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date was made to have the cooking plate includes: the capacitive sensor panel stacked on an upper surface of the glass; and a deterioration protection layer stacked on an upper surface of the capacitive sensor panel in order to suit user specific application.
Claim(s) 4-5 and 15-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2012-164580, in view of JP 2014-078533 both cited by applicant and further in view of JP2010-182659 cited by applicant. Regarding claims 4-5 and 15-16, JP 2012-164580/JP 2014-078533 discloses substantially all features of the claimed invention except the controller is further configured to determined coordinate information corresponding to the cooking plate, and associate the reference position and each of the plurality of regions with the coordinate information. JP2010-182659 discloses heating power is controlled to be reduced or stopped when a capacitance detection means first detects a change in capacitance of an electrode farther from the center of the heating coil, and the heating power is controlled to be reduced or stopped when the capacitance detection means first detects the change in capacitance of the electrode closer to the center of the heating coil within a predetermined time (see claims 7 and 8; Figures 2 and 3). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to utilize in JP 2012-164580/JP 2014-078533 heating power is controlled to be reduced or stopped when a capacitance detection means first detects a change in capacitance of an electrode farther from the center of the heating coil, and the heating power is controlled to be reduced or stopped when the capacitance detection means first detects the change in capacitance of the electrode closer to the center of the heating coil within a predetermined time as taught by JP2010-182659 in order provide to the specific application environment.
Claim(s) 9-10 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2012-164580, in view of JP 2014-078533 both cited by applicant and further in view of KR 10-1478117 cited by applicant. Regarding claims 9-10 and 20, JP 2012-164580/JP 2014-078533 discloses substantially all features of the claimed invention except a communicator configured to communicate with a user terminal, wherein the controller is further configured to, in response to the value of the capacitance change exceeding the predetermined value, transmit a warning signal to the user terminal. KR 10-1478117 discloses a means of transmitting a signal to an alarm generation device (120) can also transmit a signal to an administrator’s personal terminal by a wired or wireless communication means (140) for transmitting control signal wired or wirelessly, and a reset unit (130) can initialize a cooking device monitoring system (100) after a user stops the cooking of a cooking device after recognizing the occurrence of an alarm, and remote control can be performed by transmitting a signal to the administrator’s personal terminal via the wired or wireless communication means (140) for transmitting a control signal wired or wirelessly (par. 0026 and par. 0027; Figure 1). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to utilize in JP 2012-164580/JP 2014-078533 a communicator configured to communicate with a user terminal, wherein the controller is further configured to, in response to the value of the capacitance change exceeding the predetermined value, transmit a warning signal to the user terminal as taught by KR 10-1478117 in order to provide the communication between the heating device and the administrator.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Paradiso et al (US 2006/0016800) discloses continuous capacitive slider controller for a smooth surfaced cooktop.
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/QUANG T VAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3761 March 20, 2026