Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 .
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, 19, 20 and claims bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 20200174105 A1.
Regarding claims bellow D1 teaches
[Claim 1] A ranging sensor comprising:
a light emission control circuit that generates a light emission pulse that controls a light emission timing of irradiation light;[0081]
a pixel modulation unit(306) that performs charge distribution control in a pixel by a first ToF(ITOF) method; and[0032]
a TDC that generates a count value corresponding to a flight time of the irradiation light by a second ToF method, [0032](DtoF)
but does not explicitly teach
wherein the light emission control circuit is arranged adjacent to the pixel modulation unit and the TDC.
Although D1 does not explicitly teach limitation above it is just a matter of the rearrangement and placement of parts which is obvious modification for one of ordinary skills in the art in order to build all on one unit for compact lidar devices.
[Claim 14] The ranging sensor according to claim 1, wherein the first ToF method is an indirect ToF method, andthe second ToF method is a direct ToF method. [0032]
[Claim 15] The ranging sensor according to claim 1, wherein the light emission control circuit includes:
a first pulse generation unit that generates a reference pulse by the first ToF method;
a second pulse generation unit that generates a reference pulse by the second ToF method; and
a selector that selects any one of the reference pulse of the first pulse generation unit or the reference pulse of the second pulse generation unit as the light emission pulse.[0032]
[Claim 16] The ranging sensor according to claim 15, wherein the light emission control circuit further includes a switching control unit that controls any one of the pixel modulation unit or the TDC to a standby state.[0032](obvious/implisit)
[Claim 17] The ranging sensor according to claim 15, wherein the light emission control circuit includes:a first adjustment unit that adjusts an output timing of the light emission pulse output to the pixel modulation unit;
a second adjustment unit that adjusts an output timing of
the light emission pulse output to the TDC; and a third adjustment unit that adjusts an output timing of the light emission pulse output to a light emission drive unit that drives a light emission unit that emits the irradiation light.[0032](light emission art is implicit/obvious as changes from ITOF to DTOF)
[Claim 18] The ranging sensor according to claim 17, wherein the first adjustment unit to the third adjustment unit are arranged on a subsequent stage of the selector.[0032](selector decides when to activate the 306 or 308 and therefore supply start or pulse depending on what is acctivated)
Claim(s) bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 20200174105 A1 in view of D2 US 20190011567 A1.
Although D1 does not explicitly teach
[Claim 2] The ranging sensor according to The ranging sensor according to formed by stacking a first semiconductor substrate and a second semiconductor substrate, wherein the first semiconductor substrate includes a light receiving region that receives reflected light, which is the irradiation light reflected by an object, and
the second semiconductor substrate includes the light emission control circuit, the pixel modulation unit, and the TDC.
[Claim 3] The ranging sensor according to claim 2, wherein the first semiconductor substrate includes a first pixel region in which pixels that receive the reflected light by the first ToF method are arranged in a matrix, a second pixel region in which pixels that receive the reflected light by the second ToF method are arranged in a matrix, and a clearance region
arranged between the first pixel region and the second pixel region.
[Claim 4] The ranging sensor according to claim 2, wherein the second semiconductor substrate further includes a power supply input unit that externally receives an input of power supply, and the power supply input unit is arranged adjacent to the pixel modulation unit.
[Claim 5] The ranging sensor according to claim 4, wherein long sides of rectangular regions of the power supply input unit and the pixel modulation unit are arranged adjacent to each other.(obvious rearrangement of parts)
[Claim 6] The ranging sensor according to claim 3, wherein the TDC is arranged adjacent to an under-pixel circuit region including a pixel circuit corresponding to the second pixel region of the first semiconductor substrate. .(obvious rearrangement of parts)
[Claim 7] The ranging sensor according to claim 3, wherein the second semiconductor substrate includes the TDC in a region corresponding to the clearance region of the first semiconductor substrate. .(obvious rearrangement of parts in order to obtain efficient placing of the component on the circuit board)
[Claim 11] The ranging sensor according to 1 formed by stacking a first semiconductor substrate, a second semiconductor substrate, and a third semiconductor substrate, wherein the first semiconductor substrate includes a light receiving region that receives reflected light, which is the irradiation light reflected by an object, and
the second semiconductor substrate includes the light emission control circuit, the pixel modulation unit, and the TDC.
D2 teaches
Using different stacked units on single substrate side by side to each other with power supply and other electronics and sensor+ emitter components [0085], (fig. 6) [0117]
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 with teaching by D2 in order to build compact integrated unit for LIDAR device.
Although D1 does not explicitly teach
[Claim 8] The ranging sensor according to claim 3, wherein the second semiconductor substrate further includes an ADC that AD-converts a pixel signal by the first ToF method in a region corresponding to the clearance region of the first semiconductor substrate.
[Claim 13] The ranging sensor according to claim 11, wherein
the second semiconductor substrate includes a pixel ADC region that performs pixel ADC in a region corresponding to a first pixel region of the first semiconductor substrate in which pixels that receive the reflected light are arranged in a matrix by the first ToF method.
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 to add ADC unit in order to convert analog signal to digital and further analyze the amplitude of the signal on computer.
[Claim 12] The ranging sensor according to claim 11, wherein the third semiconductor substrate includes a first data processing circuit that calculates ranging data by the first ToF method and a second data processing circuit that calculates ranging data by the second ToF method.(See D1 abstract )
Claim(s) 9 and claims bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 20200174105 A1 in view of D3 US 20200348415 A1.
Although D1 does not teach D3 teaches
[Claim 9] The ranging sensor according to claim 1, wherein the light emission control circuit generates the light emission pulse by the first ToF method and the light emission pulse by the second ToF method in a time division manner. [0022+0029]
[Claim 10] The ranging sensor according to claim 1, wherein a circuit that generates the light emission pulse by the first ToF method and a circuit that generates the light emission pulse by the second ToF method are separately arranged as the light emission control circuit. [0022+0029]
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 with teaching by D3 in order to obtain separate measurement using two different method and identify issues with different approaches.
Conclusion
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/HOVHANNES BAGHDASARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645