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.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) were submitted on . The submission is 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 § 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 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. This claim recites a method, however, none of steps is provided.
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.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because it claims “A program” which is pure software and does not fall within the four categories of patent eligible subject matter.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-2, 8, and 10-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kawabata (JP 2017161633 A – Cited IDS – A Google Patent translated English copy is provided for reference citing).
Regarding claim 1: Kawabata teaches a sensor module comprising:
a first sensor unit that is installed on an object and measures a sound pressure (Fig. 1: Microphone 101 and page 3: lines 45-49);
a second sensor unit that is installed on the object and measures vibration (Fig. 1: Vibration sensor 105 and page 3: lines 59-65); and
a signal processing unit that outputs, as module signals, two signals of a signal of a vibration component of the object and a signal of a sound pressure component obtained by removing the vibration component of the object from an output signal of the first sensor unit by using the output signal of the first sensor unit and an output signal of the second sensor unit (Fig. 1: ANC 108 including Vibration Sound removing unit 113 and page 3: lines 36-38, page 4: line 21, page 5: lines 4-5 and Formula 1 - the output of Vibration Sound removing unit 113 reads on the claimed “a signal of a sound pressure component” and the signal measured by the Vibration sensor 105 reads on the claimed “a signal of a vibration component” since the signal does not change by the claimed “signal processing unit”).
Regarding claim 2: Kawabata teaches the sensor module according to claim 1, wherein the sensor module sets the output signal of the second sensor unit as a signal of a vibration component of the object, and a signal obtained by subtracting the output signal of the second sensor unit from the output signal of the first sensor unit is set as a signal of the sound pressure component (Fig. 1: Vibration Sound removing unit 113, page 5: lines 4-5 and Formula 1).
Regarding claim 8: Kawabata teaches the sensor module according to claim 1 further comprising a memory that stores the two module signals output from the signal processing unit (page 2 – lines 75-77: the sensor module includes of a CPU plus software or DSP to receive vibration signal and acoustic signal detected by the sensor module; and to remove the vibration component from the detected acoustic signal, inherently the vibration signal detected by the vibration sensor, the acoustic signal detected by the acoustic sensor, the vibration component, and the acoustic component processed by Vibration Sound removing unit 113 and realized by the CPU or DSP would be stored in Registers or Buffer or memory during the vibration component removal process and ANC process).
Regarding claim 10: the sensor module discussed in claim 1 above also supports this active control device claim. Also see Fig. 1: Speaker 112 and ANC 108.
Regarding claim 11: Kawabata teaches the sensor module according to claim 10, wherein the active control device calculates acoustic intensity of an installation place of the sensor module by using the two module signals, estimates acoustic radiation power of the object from the calculated acoustic intensity, and performs adaptive processing of minimizing the acoustic radiation power by using the estimated acoustic radiation power (Fig. 1: ANC 108 and adaptive filter 116-117).
Regarding claim 12: Kawabata teaches the sensor module according to claim 10, wherein the active control device estimates an estimation error signal by an estimation algorithm using the two module signals and an error signal measured by an error microphone, and performs adaptive processing of minimizing the estimation error signal using the estimated estimation error signal (Fig. 1: Error microphone 101 and ANC 108 with adaptive filter 116-117).
Regarding claim 13: Kawabata teaches the sensor module according to claim 10, wherein the active control device performs adaptive processing of minimizing the signal of the sound pressure component by using the signal of the sound pressure component of the two module signals (Fig. 1: ANC 108 with adaptive filter 116-117 and the output signal of Vibration Sound removing unit 113).
Regarding claims 14 and 15: the sensor module discussed in claim 1 also supports this corresponding method claim if it is amended to overcome the 112(b) rejection and also supports this corresponding non-transitory computer readable storage medium claim.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 3-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kawabata (JP 2017161633 A – Cited IDS) in view of Ozawa et al. (JP 2011176534 A – Cited IDS – A Google Patent translated English copy is provided for reference citing).
Regarding claims 3-4: Kawabata teaches the sensor module according to claim 1 and desirable the first sensor unit and the second sensor unit be installed near each other (page 3 – line 22). Kawabata does not explicitly teach the first sensor unit and the second sensor unit are arranged at positions where vibrations of the object measured by the first sensor unit and the second sensor unit fall within a predetermined error range; and the first sensor unit and the second sensor unit are MEMS sensors.
Ozawa teaches a sensor module (Fig. 4: Sensor module 22) comprising:
a first sensor unit that is installed on an object and measures a sound pressure (Fig. 4: Acoustic sensor unit 29); and
a second sensor unit that is installed on the object and measures vibration (Fig. 4: Vibration sensor unit 30);
wherein the first sensor unit and the second sensor unit are arranged at positions where vibrations of the object measured by the first sensor unit and the second sensor unit fall within a predetermined error range; and the sensor unit and the second sensor unit are MEMS sensors (Fig. 4 and page 3 – lines 58-68: MEMS acoustic sensor unit 29 and MEMS vibration sensor unit 30 manufactural arranged in the same package and proximality closed to each other to minimize error occurring between noise component caused by vibration collected by the acoustic sensor and noise collected by the vibration sensor which reads on the claimed “the first sensor unit and the second sensor unit are arranged at positions where vibrations of the object measured by the first sensor unit and the second sensor unit fall within a predetermined error range”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Kawabata in view of Ozawa to include the first sensor unit and the second sensor unit are arranged at positions where vibrations of the object measured by the first sensor unit and the second sensor unit fall within a predetermined error range; and the sensor unit and the second sensor unit are MEMS sensors. The motivation is to provide a small sensor module with accurate removing noise caused by vibration from the acoustic noise.
Regarding claim 5: Kawabata teaches the sensor module according to claim 1 but does not explicitly teach the first sensor unit is a microphone having a sound hole, and the second sensor unit is a microphone in which a sound hole of a microphone having the same structure as the first sensor unit is closed.
Ozawa teaches a sensor module (Fig. 4: Sensor module 11) comprising:
a first sensor unit that is installed on an object and measures a sound pressure (Fig. 1: Acoustic sensor unit 12); and
a second sensor unit that is installed on the object and measures vibration (Fig. 1: Vibration sensor unit 13);
wherein the first sensor unit is a microphone having a sound hole, and the second sensor unit is a microphone in which a sound hole of a microphone having the same structure as the first sensor unit is closed (Fig. 1: opening 19 for Acoustic sensor unit 12 and no opening for Vibration sensor unit 13; and page 3 – lines 66-67).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Kawabata in view of Ozawa to include a sound hole for first sensor unit and no sound hole for the second sensor unit. The motivation is to prevent additional noise collected by the vibration sensor caused by the acoustic sound entering a sound hole.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kawabata (JP 2017161633 A – Cited IDS) in view of Miyata et al. (JP 2017067763A – Cited IDS – US 20200309592 A1 is provided for reference citing).
Regarding claim 7: Kawabata teaches the sensor module according to claim 1 but does not explicitly teach the sensor module has a structure in which the second sensor unit and the first sensor unit are sequentially stacked and installed on the object
Miyata teaches a sensor module comprising:
a first sensor unit that is installed on an object and measures a sound pressure (Fig. 19: Acoustic sensor unit 81e and 81b); and
a second sensor unit that is installed on the object and measures vibration (Fig. 19: Vibration sensor unit 81a);
wherein the sensor module has a structure in which the second sensor unit and the first sensor unit are sequentially stacked and installed on the object (Fig. 19: Acoustic sensor unit 81e and 81b stacked on top of Vibration sensor unit 81a; and the Vibration sensor unit 81a contact with surface P of an object; also see para [0120]-[0121]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Kawabata in view of Ozawa to include the second sensor unit and the first sensor unit are sequentially stacked and installed on the object. The motivation is to provide a combination of sound and vibration sensors while reducing mounting surface of the sensor on the surface of an object.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 and 9 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID L TON whose telephone number is (571)270-7839. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM (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, Vivian Chin can be reached at (571)272-7848. 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.
/DAVID L TON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2695