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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 6/21/2024 was filed in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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) 1-8, 10, 13, 14, 17, 18, 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Paton US 4120291 in view of DiMambro US 8087298.
As to claim 1, Paton teaches “A portable ultrasonic inspection apparatus comprising: an ultrasonic probe (Figure 1) and an operating unit (Figure 8, 200), the ultrasonic probe comprising: an ultrasonic transducer (Figure 1, 3) including a coupling member for contacting and acoustically coupling to a measurement point on a surface of an object to be inspected (Figure 1, 6); and a housing (Figure 1, 2) comprising a frame assembly (Figure 1, 40) in which the ultrasonic transducer is located with the coupling member arranged at an end thereof (Figure 1 shows that 3 has a top end connected to 40 via 4 and a bottom end, 6, which is the coupling member); and characterised in that: the ultrasonic transducer and the coupling member are positioned on a stylus (Figure 1, 4); the housing includes a motion system to pivot the stylus about the measurement point (Figure 1, 10 is a guide groove which allows for the rotation of 4 about an axis so that 6 moves within 16 and maintains contact with subject under test).” Paton does not teach landing elements or generating a polar scan map.
DiMambro teaches “the probe includes three landing elements for locating the probe on the surface of the object (Column 8, lines 17-20), the landing elements being spaced apart from each other in an array and located at the end of the housing (Figure 2), with the coupling member to contact the measurement point being arranged within the array (Figure 1 shows contact chamber extending from probe 120 to the measurement point which is arranged within the array of the landing elements); and the three landing elements about the measurement point describe a surface normal plane at the measurement point (Figure 1) with a normal vector coinciding with a rest orientation of the stylus to provide a polar coordinate origin for the compilation of polar scan maps using the probe (Abstract; Column 3, lines 17-45).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the invention to combine the teachings of Paton with DiMambro. It is known to have roller elements at the base of a probe since this aids in maintaining a fixed distance and allows for the probe to move across the surface with ease. As for the encoding system, this allows the system to know the location of any detected flaws. This aids in efficiency.
As to claim 2, Paton teaches “wherein the ultrasonic transducer is a pulse echo transducer (Column 2, lines 35-43).”
As to claim 3, DiMambro teaches “wherein the landing elements are spherical bearings (element 180 is a roller element which can be considered a bearing).”
As to claim 4, DiMambro teaches “wherein the apparatus includes fixing means to hold the landing elements against the surface and wherein the fixing means comprises one or more elements selected from a group comprising: magnets, electromagnets, one or more vacuum suction pads, and a lining of high-friction material (Column 6, lines 64 to Column 7, line 10).”
As to claim 5, DiMambro teaches “wherein the landing elements are configured to move radially with respect to the coupling member (Figure 1).”
As to claim 6, Paton teaches “wherein the motion system comprises an arrangement located between the stylus and the frame assembly, the arrangement including one or more elements selected from a group comprising: permanent magnets, controllable electro-magnets, mechanical springs, electric motors, pulleys, pistons and positional actuators (Column 3, lines 3-21).”
As to claim 7, Paton teaches “wherein the apparatus includes a tracking system for determining the stylus orientation with respect to the measurement point on the surface of the object (Column 4, lines 14-27).”
As to claim 8, Paton teaches “wherein the tracking system comprises an arrangement selected from a group comprising: a light-source mounted on the moving stylus facing an optical position-sensitive detector on the frame assembly, an imaging sensor on the frame assembly configured to have the moving stylus within its field of view, a conductive plug on the moving stylus facing a quadrature array of inductive sensing coils on the frame assembly, an array of eddy-current sensors on the stylus, an array of eddy- current sensors on the frame assembly, an array of capacitive sensors on the stylus, and an array of capacitive sensors on frame assembly (Column 4, lines 14-27; Figure 1, 17, 18, 19, 20).”
As to claim 10, Paton teaches “A method of non-destructive inspection of an object comprising the steps:(a) providing an ultrasonic inspection apparatus comprising an ultrasonic probe and an operating unit (Figure 1), the ultrasonic probe comprising: an ultrasonic transducer (Figure 1, 3) including a coupling member for contacting and acoustically coupling to a measurement point on a surface of an object to be inspected (Figure 1, 6); a housing (FIgure 1, 2) comprising a frame assembly (Figure 1, 40) in which the ultrasonic transducer is located with the coupling member arranged at an end thereof (Figure 1 shows that 3 has a top end connected to 40 via 4 and a bottom end, 6, which is the coupling member): the ultrasonic transducer and the coupling member are positioned on a stylus (Figure 1, 4): the housing includes a motion system to pivot the stylus about the measurement point (Figure 1, 10 is a guide groove which allows for the rotation of 4 about an axis so that 6 moves within 16 and maintains contact with subject under test): (c) inducing pivotal movement of the stylus about the measurement point; (d) taking oblique angle ultrasound measurements as the transducer moves (Column 4, lines 14-27; Figure 1).” Paton does not teach landing elements or generating a polar scan map.
DiMambro teaches” the probe includes three landing elements for locating the probe on the surface of the object (Column 8, lines 17-20), the landing elements being spaced apart from each other in an array and located at the end of the housing (Figure 2), with the coupling member to contact the measurement point being arranged within the array (Figure 1 shows contact chamber extending from probe 120 to the measurement point which is arranged within the array of the landing elements): and the three landing elements about the measurement point describe a surface normal plane at the measurement point with a normal vector coinciding with a rest orientation of the stylus (Figure 1) to provide a polar coordinate origin for the compilation of polar scan maps using the probe; (b) locating the landing elements on a surface of the object and making contact on a measurement point of the surface with the coupling member (Abstract; Column 3, lines 17-45); and (e) processing the ultrasound measurements as a polar scan map to provide inspection information (Abstract; Column 3, lines 17-45).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the invention to combine the teachings of Paton with DiMambro. It is known to have roller elements at the base of a probe since this aids in maintaining a fixed distance and allows for the probe to move across the surface with ease. As for the encoding system, this allows the system to know the location of any detected flaws. This aids in efficiency.
As to claim 13, Paton teaches “wherein the movement of the transducer with respect to the contact point is measured and each ultrasound measurement is associated with a transducer position (Column 4, lines 14-27).”
As to claim 14, Paton teaches “wherein the method includes measuring the direction of a laser beam coupled to an end of the transducer by a light sending device to determine an orientation of the transducer (Column 4, lines 14-27).”
As to claim 17, Paton teaches “herein at step (c), movement of the transducer is stochastically induced (Figure 1 depicts a probe that can be moved as needed by the user. Therefore the movement can be stochastically induced).”
As to claim 18, Paton teaches “wherein at step (c), movement of the transducer is deterministic (Figure 1 depicts a probe that can be moved as needed by the user. Therefore the movement can be deterministic).”
As to claim 22, DiMambro teaches “wherein the method includes the additional step of moving the probe to a further contact point and repeating the steps (Column 9, lines 31-41).”
Claim(s) 9, 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Paton US 4120291 in view of DiMambro US 8087298 and in further view of Georgeson US 20060055396.
As to claim 9, the prior arts teach that a force is used to press the probe against the surface under test but no specific positioning apparatus is taught.
Georgeson teaches “wherein the apparatus further includes means to position the probe on the surface, these means being selected from a group comprising: a drone, an articulated arm on a small unattended ground vehicle (SUGV), a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and an articulated arm on a multi-axis numerically controlled positioning apparatus ([0059]).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the invention to combine the teachings of Georgeson with Paton and DiMambro. Using a robotic arm or drone to use the probe is known in the art. This allows for the probe to be used in various applications.
As to claim 16, Georgeson teaches “wherein at step (c), an end of the transducer is moved in an orbital pattern (Figure 5B shows that the probe can be moved in an orbital pattern based on its attachment to the arm).”
Claim(s) 11, 12, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Paton US 4120291 in view of DiMambro US 8087298 and in further view of Hall US 20220137005.
As to claim 11, the prior arts do not explicitly teach “A-scans”.
Hall teaches “wherein the ultrasound measurements are collected as A-scans and processed by extracting a metric from the A-scans to provide at least a portion of a backscattered polar scan ([0013]; [0027]).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the invention to combine the teachings of Hall with Paton and DiMambro. Utilizing A-scans are known in the art due to their reliability and real-time feedback.
As to claim 12, Paton teaches “wherein the polar scans of backscattered ultrasonic energy are compiled in a real-time (Column 1, lines 9-23).”
As to claim 19, Paton teaches “wherein the method includes adapting controlled transducer movements during the ultrasonic measurements based upon real-time analysis (Claim 1).”
Hall teaches “of the recorded A-scans and/or portions of the evolving polar scan as they are being compiled ([0013]; [0027]).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the invention to combine the teachings of Hall with Paton and DiMambro. Utilizing A-scans are known in the art due to their reliability and real-time feedback.
Claim(s) 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Paton US 4120291 in view of DiMambro US 8087298 and in further view of Tentler US 5024105.
As to claim 15, the prior arts do not teach claimed embodiment of the conductive element and inductive sensing coils.
Tentler teaches “wherein the method includes determining an orientation of the transducer by monitoring movement of a conductive element coupled to the transducer within an array of inductive sensing coils (Column 6, lines 39-49).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the invention to combine the teachings of Tentler with Paton and DiMambro. There are many ways to monitor the movement of the transducer. Choosing one technique over another depends on the user as well as the application, therefore choosing one technique over another involves routine skill in the art.
Conclusion
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/TARUN SINHA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2863