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 . The rejections and claim interpretation from the Office Action of 11/13/2025 are hereby withdrawn. New grounds for rejection are presented below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 4 recites “cutting a plate into a plurality of directions.” It is not clear what it means to cut a plate “into a plurality of directions” and this leaves the scope of the claim unclear. The Examiner believes “in a plurality of directions” is intended.
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 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) the abstract idea of a mathematical algorithm for building and using a threshold for evaluating part destruction of parts including cutouts [See Fig. 15 and corresponding text of the instant Specification].
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because no use for the algorithm result is recited.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the required part measurements for establishing and using the threshold must necessarily be performed to facilitate implementation of the algorithm. The recited computer components in implementing the algorithm amount to the recitation of general-purpose computer components for implementing the algorithm through use of a general-purpose computer and do not serve to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself (see Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014)). The use of the recited graph is a well-understood, routine, and convention manner of displaying a portion of the analysis [See Figs. 10 and 11 of Zike et al., Experimental determination of the micro-scale strength and stress-strain relation of an epoxy resin, Elsevier, 2016 and Fig. 6 of Dubke et al. (US 9513200 B1)] and does not serve to amount to significantly more than the recitation of the abstract idea itself. The cutting of a plate is not recited in the claims, Claim 4 amounts to a mere field-of-use limitation.
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, 3-5, and 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zike et al., Experimental determination of the micro-scale strength and stress-strain relation of an epoxy resin, Elsevier, 2016 [hereinafter “Zike”] and Dubke et al. (US 9513200 B1)[hereinafter “Dubke”].
Regarding Claims 1 and , Zike discloses a non-transitory computer readable storage medium with a destruction prediction program (and corresponding method)[Page 48, second column – “In order to obtain the micro-mechanical properties of a polymer material, specimens with a finite notch root radii were made to mimic the stress state around a void. The specimens were subjected to double cantilever beam (DCB) tests in a vacuum chamber of an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM). From the images captured in the ESEM, the micro-scale strains around deformed notches were measured with the 2D digital image correlation (DIC) method using the commercial software ARAMIS [5].”] causing a computer to perform operations to determine destruction prediction [Page 58, second column – “Our measurements confirm the expectations that at the micro-scale the failure strain and stress are significantly larger than the failure strain and stress at the macro-scale. The micro-scale measurements showed that just prior to failure initiation the strain components εθθ and εrr reach 20% and −15% at the notch edge, respectively. The micro-scale failure stress, σn, was estimated in the range of 220–300 MPa employing analytical and empirical approaches.”] of a resin molding [Title – “epoxy resin”Abstract – “An approach is developed for determining the stress-strain law and a failure stress appropriate for micromechanical models of polymer materials. Double cantilever beam test specimens, made of an epoxy polymer with notches having finite root radius, were subjected to pure bending moments in an environmental scanning electron microscope. The recorded images were used to measure strains around the notch with a 2D digital image correlation method. The strain in front of the notch was found to reach 20% before the failure initiation, which significantly exceeds the failure strain measured at the macro-scale (5–6%). The hardening exponent of a power law hardening material was obtained by the use of the J-integral, estimating the strain energy density around the notch. The hardening exponent was found to be within the range of 5–6 and the corresponding micro-scale failure stress was in the range of 220–300 MPa.”], the operations including:
measuring a plurality of loads at breaking a test pieces, by performing a tension test to the plurality of test pieces of the resin molding [Page 48, second column – “In order to obtain the micro-mechanical properties of a polymer material, specimens with a finite notch root radii were made to mimic the stress state around a void. The specimens were subjected to double cantilever beam (DCB) tests in a vacuum chamber of an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM). From the images captured in the ESEM, the micro-scale strains around deformed notches were measured with the 2D digital image correlation (DIC) method using the commercial software ARAMIS [5].”], the plurality of test pieces including cutouts each having a different cutout radius [Page 48, second column – “The strain fields between the notches with initially different root radii were compared normalizing all length parameters with the width of deformed notch in accordance to McMeeking's numerical study [6].”];
calculating a plurality of first maximum values of equivalent strains and a plurality of first inclinations of equivalent strains for a plurality of 3D test piece models corresponding to the plurality of test pieces [Page 58, second column – “The strain fields between the notches with initially different root radii were compared normalizing all length parameters with the width of deformed notch in accordance to McMeeking's numerical study [6].” Multiple models for multiple test specimens were used and analyzed.], wherein a first maximum value of an equivalent strain that occurs in a cutout bottom of a cutout [Equation 2 – “εij is the strain tensor”] and a first inclination of an equivalent strain in an orthogonal direction [Equation 2 – “
PNG
media_image1.png
11
7
media_image1.png
Greyscale
ij (θ,n) are the dimensionless functions[.]” See θ in Fig. 2.Page 49, first column – “The dimensionless functions
PNG
media_image1.png
11
7
media_image1.png
Greyscale
ij (θ,n) are independent of J and r but depend on n in the J dominance region [10]. Therefore, the strain variations around the crack can be described as a product of two components. The first component controls the strain magnitude and the second component,
PNG
media_image1.png
11
7
media_image1.png
Greyscale
ij (θ,n), gives the strain variations with an angle around the crack tip.”] orthogonal to a main stress direction [Page 47, second column – “the macroscopic failure strain
PNG
media_image1.png
11
7
media_image1.png
Greyscale
u will be determined from the macroscopic deformation, e.g. the elongation ΔL measured by an extensometer with a certain initial gauge length”See θ in Fig. 2 and Equations 11-13.] in which a main stress of the cutout bottom acts for a 3D test piece model, of the plurality of 3D test piece models are calculated by applying, to the 3D test piece model, the measured load at breaking the test piece corresponding to the 3D test piece model [Page 58, second column – “Our measurements confirm the expectations that at the micro-scale the failure strain and stress are significantly larger than the failure strain and stress at the macro-scale. The micro-scale measurements showed that just prior to failure initiation the strain components εθθ and εrr reach 20% and −15% at the notch edge, respectively. The micro-scale failure stress, σn, was estimated in the range of 220–300 MPa employing analytical and empirical approachesPage 48, second column – “In order to obtain the micro-mechanical properties of a polymer material, specimens with a finite notch root radii were made to mimic the stress state around a void. The specimens were subjected to double cantilever beam (DCB) tests in a vacuum chamber of an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM). From the images captured in the ESEM, the micro-scale strains around deformed notches were measured with the 2D digital image correlation (DIC) method using the commercial software ARAMIS [5]. The strain fields between the notches with initially different root radii were compared normalizing all length parameters with the width of deformed notch in accordance to McMeeking's numerical study [6].”].
Although Zike discloses the determination of where destruction occurs relative to the maximum value of the equivalent strain (i.e., “first maximum value”) and the inclination of the equivalent strain [See Fig. 16.Page 58, second column – “Our measurements confirm the expectations that at the micro-scale the failure strain and stress are significantly larger than the failure strain and stress at the macro-scale. The micro-scale measurements showed that just prior to failure initiation the strain components εθθ and εrr reach 20% and −15% at the notch edge, respectively. The micro-scale failure stress, σn, was estimated in the range of 220–300 MPa employing analytical and empirical approaches.”], Zike fails to disclose:
determining a plurality of threshold points for the plurality of 3D test piece models, each threshold point being determined based on the first maximum value and the first inclination calculated for one of the plurality of 3D test piece models;
setting an approximation straight line passing through the plurality of threshold points as a threshold of destruction progress;
calculating a second maximum value of an occurring equivalent strain and a second inclination of an equivalent strain by applying a load to a 3D target model of a target piece of the resin molding for the destruction prediction; and
determining whether or not destruction occurs based on the second maximum value of the equivalent strain and the second inclination of the equivalent strain and the threshold.
However, Dubke discloses the use of a threshold for evaluating part destruction based on part stress and stress angle [See Abstract and Fig. 8], including the use of straight line approximation as a threshold for evaluating whether or not fracture growth is present [See the straight line portions in Fig. 7 to separate “Fracture growth” and “No fracture growth”]. It would have been obvious to evaluate the damage of a part indicated by second stress values relative to the damage threshold establish in Zike in order to better assess the condition of a part.
Regarding Claim 3, Zike discloses that the first inclination of the equivalent strain is calculated based on an equivalent strain of a surface layer of the 3D test piece model [Equation 2 – “
PNG
media_image1.png
11
7
media_image1.png
Greyscale
ij (θ,n) are the dimensionless functions[.]” See θ in Fig. 2.Page 49, first column – “The dimensionless functions
PNG
media_image1.png
11
7
media_image1.png
Greyscale
ij (θ,n) are independent of J and r but depend on n in the J dominance region [10]. Therefore, the strain variations around the crack can be described as a product of two components. The first component controls the strain magnitude and the second component,
PNG
media_image1.png
11
7
media_image1.png
Greyscale
ij (θ,n), gives the strain variations with an angle around the crack tip.”].
Regarding Claim 4, Zike discloses that the plurality of test pieces used in the tension test are manufactured by cutting a plate into a plurality of directions [See Fig. 4 and associated text].
Regarding Claim 7, the combination would disclose that the plurality of threshold points for the plurality of 3D test piece models are determined on a graph having a vertical axis indicating a destruction progress strain and a horizontal axis indicating strain inclination, and each of the plurality of threshold points is a point of the calculated first maximum value as the destruction progress strain and the calculated first inclination as the strain inclination [Applying the thresholding for destruction of Dubke to the context of analyzing strain and inclination of Zike (Equation 2 – “
PNG
media_image1.png
11
7
media_image1.png
Greyscale
ij (θ,n) are the dimensionless functions[.]” See θ in Fig. 2. See the analysis of Fig. 3.).]
Claim(s) 2 and 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zike et al., Experimental determination of the micro-scale strength and stress-strain relation of an epoxy resin, Elsevier, 2016 [hereinafter “Zike”]; Dubke et al. (US 9513200 B1)[hereinafter “Dubke”]; and Khonsari et al. (US 20140067285 A1)[hereinafter “Khonsari”].
Regarding Claims 2 and 6, Zike discloses that the resin molding is a fiber composite resin molding [Page 47, first column], but fails to disclose that:
the program further causes the computer to calculate a fiber orientation of the 3D test piece model, and
the first maximum value of the equivalent strain that occurs in the cutout bottom and the inclination of the equivalent strain in the orthogonal direction are calculated for the 3D test piece model having information of the fiber orientation.
However, Khonsari discloses contemplating the effect of fiber orientation on the stress-strain relationship [Paragraph [0004] – “the strain energy was normalized (with respect to the maximum monotonic strain energy, i.e., the product of the maximum monotonic stress and strain) to indirectly take into account the fiber orientation angle”]. It would have been obvious to take into account fiber orientation for a part to better assess the condition of the part.
Response to Arguments
Applicant argues:
PNG
media_image2.png
283
867
media_image2.png
Greyscale
Examiner’s Response:
The corresponding interpretation of claims invoking 35 USC 112(f) is hereby withdrawn.
Applicant argues:
PNG
media_image3.png
136
858
media_image3.png
Greyscale
Examiner’s Response:
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Design of a generic component is an abstract idea and no manufacturing, maintenance, or replacement of any real component is recited in the instant claims.
Applicant argues:
PNG
media_image4.png
185
869
media_image4.png
Greyscale
Examiner’s Response:
The corresponding rejections under 35 USC 112 are hereby withdrawn.
Applicant argues:
PNG
media_image5.png
589
859
media_image5.png
Greyscale
Examiner’s Response:
The Examiner agrees. However, the application of the teachings of Dubke per the context of Zike would disclose the referred-to limitations, see the new grounds for rejection above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Kocaman et al., Monitoring the Damage State of Fiber Reinforced Composites Using an FBG Network for Failure Prediction, MDPI, 2017
Valiente et al., Measurement of the yield and tensile strengths of neutron-irradiated and post-irradiation recovered vessel steels with notched specimens, Elsevier, 1996
Yang et al., Understanding the tensile fracture of deeply-notched metallic glasses, Elsevier, 2020
US 20110245378 A1 – NANOMATERIAL-REINFORCED RESINS AND RELATED MATERIALS
US 20080052014 A1 – Fatigue Crack Growth Curve Estimation Method, Estimation Program, And Estimation Device
US 20110054840 A1 – FAILURE PREDICTION OF COMPLEX STRUCTURES UNDER ARBITRARY TIME-SERIAL LOADING CONDITION
US 20030024323 A1 – Fracture Toughness Determination Using Spiral-grooved Cylindrical Specimen And Pure Torsional Loading
US 20150219539 A1 – METHOD OF DETERMINING THE NON-PROPAGATION THRESHOLD OF FATIGUE CRACKS AT HIGH FREQUENCY
US 20020077795 A1 – System, Method And Storage Medium For Predicting Impact Performance Of Thermoplastic
US 6460012 B1 – Nonlinear Structural Crack Growth Monitoring
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 KYLE ROBERT QUIGLEY whose telephone number is (313)446-4879. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM EST.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Arleen Vazquez can be reached at (571) 272-2619. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/KYLE R QUIGLEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857