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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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 1-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takasao (US 20230065210) in view of Honma et al.(US5923282). Hereafter, Honma et al. is referred to as Honma.
Regarding claim 1, Takasao teaches:
a surveying apparatus [#200 of Fig. 1, optical distance measuring device, ¶ 19] configured to measure a distance [¶ 19] to a reflection point [OB of Fig. 1, object, ¶ 23] that reflects distance measuring light [DL and RL of Fig. 1, laser light and reflected light respectively, ¶ 23] based on emission and reception of the distance measuring light [¶ 26],
the surveying apparatus comprising a processor or circuitry [#100 of Fig. 1, controller, ¶ 24] configured to: determine whether a beam is a repeatedly reflected beam [¶ 27].
Takasao does not explicitly teach:
a processor or circuitry configured to: assume that a symbol "K" represents a natural number, excluding zero; and determine whether a beam that is received after (K+1)th light emission is a repeatedly reflected beam of light that has been emitted before the (K+1)th light emission,
wherein the beam that is received, after the (K+1)th light emission, at a time corresponding to a period based on a time interval from light emission at or before Kth light emission until first reception of a beam related to the light emission at or before the Kth light emission, is determined as being the repeatedly reflected beam.
Honma teaches, solving the same problem of multiple reflections:
a processor or circuitry [#8 -11 of Fig. 1, range finding unit, distance data processing unit, detecting unit, and identifying unit respectively, Col. 4 lines 64 - 67 and Col. 5 lines 1 - 16] configured to: assume that a symbol "K" represents a natural number, excluding zero [Col 5, Lines 17 – 27, first distance data set];
and determine whether a beam that is received after (K+1)th light emission is a repeatedly reflected beam of light that has been emitted before the (K+1)th light emission [Col. 5 Lines 17-27],
wherein the beam that is received, after the (K+1)th light emission, at a time corresponding to a period based on a time interval from light emission at or before Kth light emission until first reception of a beam related to the light emission at or before the Kth light emission, is determined as being the repeatedly reflected beam [Col. 5 Lines 17-27].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Takasao to group received pulses whose TOF (time-of-flight) are a multiple of a prior pulse’s TOF similar to Honma with a reasonable expectation of success. This would have the predictable result of ensuring that received pulses are correctly mapped to transmitted pulses and increasing distance accuracy.
Regarding claim 2, Takasao also teaches:
The surveying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a beam that is received, after the repeatedly reflected beam is received, at a time not corresponding to the period, is used as a reflected beam of the (K+1)th light emission [¶ 36].
Regarding claim 3, Takasao teaches:
The surveying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, in a case in which another beam is received, after the repeatedly reflected beam is received, at a time corresponding to the period, and an estimated intensity of the repeatedly reflected beam at the time of receiving the another beam is not more than a predetermined threshold , the another beam is used as a reflected beam of the (K+1)th light emission [¶ 49].
Regarding claim 4, claim 4 is identical in scope to claim 1, and is rejected for the reasons stated above.
Regarding claim 5, Takasao teaches:
A non-transitory computer recording medium storing computer executable instructions [¶ 58] for making a computer processor execute a surveying program to cause measuring a distance [¶ 19] to a reflection point [OB of Fig. 1, object, ¶ 23] that reflects distance measuring light [DL and RL of Fig. 1, laser light and reflected light respectively, ¶ 23] based on emission and reception of the distance measuring light [¶ 26],
the computer executable instructions made to, when executed by the computer processor, cause the computer processor to:
determine whether a beam is a repeatedly reflected beam [¶ 27].
Takasao does not explicitly teach:
the computer executable instructions made to, when executed by the computer processor, cause the computer processor to:
assume that a symbol "K" represents a natural number, excluding zero;
and determine whether a beam that is received after (K+1)th light emission is a repeatedly reflected beam of light that has been emitted before the (K+1)th light emission, wherein the beam that is received, after the (K+1)th light emission, at a time corresponding to a period based on a time interval from light emission at or before Kth light emission until first reception of a beam related to the light emission at or before the Kth light emission, is determined as being the repeatedly reflected beam.
Honma teaches, solving the same problem of multiple reflections:
the computer executable instructions made to, when executed by the computer processor[#8 -11 of Fig. 1, range finding unit, distance data processing unit, detecting unit, and identifying unit respectively, Col. 4 lines 64 - 67 and Col. 5 lines 1 - 16], cause the computer processor to:
assume that a symbol "K" represents a natural number, excluding zero [Col 5, Lines 17 – 27, first distance data set];
and determine whether a beam that is received after (K+1)th light emission is a repeatedly reflected beam of light that has been emitted before the (K+1)th light emission [Col. 5 Lines 17-27],
wherein the beam that is received, after the (K+1)th light emission, at a time corresponding to a period based on a time interval from light emission at or before Kth light emission until first reception of a beam related to the light emission at or before the Kth light emission, is determined as being the repeatedly reflected beam [Col. 5 Lines 17-27].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Takasao to group received pulses whose TOF are a multiple of a prior pulse’s TOF similar to Honma with a reasonable expectation of success. This would have the predictable result of ensuring that received pulses are correctly mapped to transmitted pulses and increasing distance accuracy.
Conclusion
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/A.D.S./Examiner, Art Unit 3645
/ISAM A ALSOMIRI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3645