DETAILED ACTION
This action is filed in response to the amendments filed on 10/24/2025.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's amendments filed 10/24/2025 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. The amendments to Claims 1 and 3 are fully addressed in the rejections below.
Examiner notes Claims 4-6, 8-17, and 19-20 have been indicated as containing allowable subject matter and if one of those claims were to be amended into Claim 1 it would advance prosecution.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 1-2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rothberg (KR20180009772A) in view of Holmes (US20140108007A1) and in further view of Trout (US4984253).
Regarding Claim 1, Rothberg teaches a spectrographic analyzer of a plurality of pulses within a signal (e.g. see [pg. 4 paragraph 4] “The apparatus 1-100 may include an optical system 1-115 and an analysis system 1-160. The optical system 1-115 may include one or more optical components (e.g., a lens, a mirror, an optical filter, an attenuator), and may include optical pulses 1-122 ) And / or to deliver the optical pulses 1-122 to the analysis system 1-160. The analysis system directs the optical pulses to at least one sample to be analyzed, receives one or more optical signals (e.g., fluorescence, backscattered radiation) from the at least one sample”), comprising:
an integrator for summing a respective amplitude total for each of the pulses, the respective amplitude total from summing the digital amplitude samples between the beginning and the end of each of the pulses in the second stream as delayed by the delay buffer (e.g. see [pg. 51 paragraph 3] “Where S .sub.x is the normalized signal level corresponding to the x direction, V .sub.Qn is the signal level received from the nth photodiode of the quad detector, and V .sub.T is the sum of the signals from all four photodiodes Lt; / RTI > In addition, the position of the laser beam in the y-direction can be determined, for example, using the following algorithm:
.sub.S y = [(V Q3 + V Q4) - (V Q1 + V Q2)] / V T.
The average power coupled into all the waveguides on chip 1-140 can be determined by summing the signals from all of the photodiodes 1-324 arranged to detect the power at each of the waveguides on the chip .”); and
a histogram buffer for maintaining a plurality of bins and for incrementing a respective one of the bins encompassing the respective amplitude total for each of the pulses (e.g. see [pg. 9 paragraph 3] “After a number of excitation events, for example, a signal accumulated in each electronic storage bin can be read to provide a histogram with corresponding bins representing the fluorescence emission decay rate. This process is illustrated in Figures 1ja and 1jb. The bins of the histogram may represent the number of photons detected during each time interval after excitation of the fluorescence end (s) in the reaction chamber. In some embodiments, signals for bins will accumulate after a large number of excitation pulses, as shown in Figure 1ja,” and [pg. 72 paragraph 13] “Figure 1jb shows a histogram of accumulated fluorescence photon counts at various time bins after repeated pulsed excitation of a sample, according to some embodiments”).
Rothberg does not explicitly disclose a data interface for duplicating an input stream of a plurality of digital amplitude samples for the signal into a first and second stream of the digital amplitude samples, wherein the first and second streams are synchronized;
an edge detection filter for determining a beginning and an end of each of the pulses within the first stream of the digital amplitude samples; and
a delay buffer for delaying the second stream of the digital samples by a duration sufficient for the edge detection filter to determine both the beginning and the end of each of the pulses.
In the same field of endeavor Holmes teaches a data interface for duplicating an input stream of a plurality of digital amplitude samples for the signal into a first and second stream of the digital amplitude samples (e.g. see [0021] “At the decoder, the excitation is demultiplexed, the excitation is multiplied by two and the pulses are converted to a Hanning modified sawtooth that is spectrally flattened to give equal amplitudes to all of the harmonics and used as excitation for the spectrum generator”)
wherein the first and second streams are synchronized (e.g. see [0061] “Bit zero is the frame synchronization bit and is used to synchronize the spectrum amplitudes for the different channels if band pass channels are used, linear prediction or residuals could also use the same format. 49 bits are used for the short term power spectrum encoding giving a frame of 50 bits which includes the synchronizing bit”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to combine the Spectrographic analyzer of Rothberg with the data interface of Holmes for the purpose of analyzing signal pulses with the advantage of more efficient distribution of the signal for analysis.
Also in the same field of endeavor, Trout teaches an edge detection filter for determining a beginning and an end of each of the pulses within the first stream of the digital amplitude samples (e.g. see [Col. 4 lines 12-16] “The shift register sends the sixty-four digitized 20 samples on sixty-four parallel lines to an edge detector 48 which analyzes the samples within each group of sixty-four to determine whether a leading edge or a trailing edge exists within the sample window”); and
a delay buffer for delaying the second stream of the digital samples by a duration sufficient for the edge detection filter to determine both the beginning and the end of each of the pulses (e.g. see [Col. 4 lines 52-57] “The first sixty-four place shift register 46 also sends the sixty-four digitized samples to a delay 49. The delay compensates for the time necessary to perform the edge detection algorithm and select the proper ROM coefficients. The data is then sent to a second sixty-four place shift register for further processing”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to combine the Spectrographic analyzer of Rothberg with the edge detector and delay of Trout for the purpose of analyzing signal pulses with the advantage of a synchronized detection of changes in the state of the signal.
Regarding Claim 2, Rothberg, Holmes, and Trout teach the limitations of Claim 1. Rothberg further discloses an analog to digital converter (ADC) for converting the signal, which is an analog signal, into the input stream of the digital amplitude samples (e.g. see [pg. 50 paragraph 5] “Amplifying circuitry 8-410 may, according to some embodiments, include CMOS electronics (e.g., FETs, sampling circuits, analog-to-digital converters) that convert an analog signal to a digital signal. In other embodiments, the analog signals may be provided to the control circuitry 8-430 from the amplifier circuitry”).
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rothberg (KR20180009772A) in view of Holmes (US20140108007A1) and in further view of Trout (US4984253) and Deng (CN107894406 A).
Regarding Claim 3, Rothberg, Holmes, and Trout teach the limitations of Claim 1. Rothberg further discloses a differentiating filter for detecting a discerned leading edge rate of the pulses; and a threshold comparator for determining the beginning of each of the pulses upon the discerned leading edge rate from the differentiating filter crossing a threshold (e.g. see [pg. 56 paragraph 5] “in some implementations, the amplifier in the pulse amplification stage may be driven into saturation to provide a rising edge trigger signal. The trigger point for the clock can be set to any value on the rising edge. Because the amplifier is saturated, fluctuations in the pulse amplitude are less likely to affect the trigger timing than for non-saturated amplifiers. The rising edge can be used to toggle a flip-flop clocking circuit, such as those implemented in field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),” and [pg. 55 paragraph 2] “the clock digitization stage, the output from the automatic gain control amplifier may be provided to the comparator 9-350 to generate a digital pulse train, according to some implementations. For example, a pulse train from an AGC may be provided at a first input of a comparator 9-350 and a reference potential (which may be user configurable in some embodiments) may be coupled to a second input of the comparator . The reference potential can establish a trigger point for the rising edge of each generated digital pulse. As can be seen, variations in optical pulse amplitude will result in amplitude variations of the electron pulses before AGC amplifier 9-340. Without the AGC amplifier, these amplitude variations will result in timing jitter at the rising edges of the pulses in the digitized pulse train from the comparator 9-350. By leveling the pulse amplitudes using an AGC amplifier, the pulse jitter after the comparator is significantly reduced.
Rothberg does not explicitly disclose wherein the differentiating filter is a proportional-integral-differentiating filter.
In the same field of endeavor, Deng teaches wherein the differentiating filter is a proportional-integral-differentiating filter (e.g. see [pg. 4 paragraph 7] “When the Fourier transform infrared spectrum analyzer starting, by PID (Proportion, Integral Derivative the voice coil motor speed adjusted to 1~10 times normal operating speed proportional-integral-derivative) algorithm, a voice coil motor according to the preset starting scan frequency operation such as Fourier transform infrared spectrum analyser to detect the sample operation is 5 Hz, then the starting stage is 4 times, that is, voice coil motor operates at a frequency of 20 Hz. so it can collect 40 of signal parameters, increasing the timeliness of the measurement. the starting stage by adjusting the electromagnetic motor to stably output the laser signal and infrared signal, the operation of the voice coil motor based on time, then obtaining infrared signal starting parameter through analogue-to-digital conversion circuit. The voice coil motor pulse number in half cycle, signal envelope and an infrared signal and other parameters”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to combine the Spectrographic analyzer of Rothberg with the differentiating filter embodiment of Deng for the purpose of analyzing signal pulses with the advantage of a synchronized detection of changes in the state of the signal.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rothberg (KR20180009772A) in view of Holmes (US20140108007A1) and in further view of Trout (US4984253) and Yamamoto (US 20220057317 A1).
Regarding Claim 18, Rothberg, Holmes, and Trout teach the limitations of Claim 1. Rothberg does not explicitly disclose a pulse counter for counting the pulses recorded in the bins. In the same field of endeavor, Yamamoto teaches a pulse counter for counting the pulses recorded in the bins (e.g. see [0396] “a pulse counter connected to the readout electrode and configured to count pulses of electrical current from the differentiating element”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to combine the spectrographic analyzer of Rothberg with the pulse counter of Yamamoto with the advantage of detailed and exact data collection.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6 and 8-17, and 19-20 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding Claim 4, none of the prior art discloses or renders obvious a device as claimed comprising “a digital bandpass filter with a center of a bandpass corresponding to an expected leading edge rate of the pulses, the differentiating filter detecting the discerned leading edge rate from an output of the digital bandpass filter.”
Claims 5-6 would be allowable based on their dependence on Claim
Regarding Claim 8, none of the prior art discloses or renders obvious a device as claimed comprising “a stackup counter for incrementing when the first and second pulses overlap.”
Claims 9-11 would be allowable based on their dependence on Claim 8.
Regarding Claim 12, none of the prior art discloses or renders obvious a device as claimed comprising “an overlap detector with an overlap counter for incrementing upon the beginning of each of the pulses, and for decrementing not below zero upon the end of each of the pulses, wherein the overlap detector is for generating a start, abort, and stop signal, the start signal asserted at the beginning of each of the pulses that increments the overlap counter from zero to one, the abort signal asserted at the beginning of each of the pulses that increments the overlap counter further, and the stop signal asserted at the end of each of the pulses that decrements the overlap counter from one to zero.”
Claims 13-17 would be allowable based on their dependence on Claim 12.
Regarding Claim 19, none of the prior art discloses or renders obvious a device as claimed comprising “a stackup counter for incrementing when two of the pulses overlap.”
Regarding Claim 20, none of the prior art discloses or renders obvious a device as claimed comprising " a stackup counter for incrementing when two of the pulses overlap.”
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new grounds 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 NYLA GAVIA whose telephone number is (703)756-1592. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:30pm.
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/NYLA GAVIA/Examiner, Art Unit 2863
/Catherine T. Rastovski/Supervisory Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2863