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.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 5/1/2026 has been entered.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 16 is allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The prior art taken singularly or in combination fails to anticipate or fairly suggest the limitations of independent claim 16, in such a manner that a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102 or 103 would be proper.
With respect to claim 16, the closest prior art Liu et al. (CN112034591) and Ito (PGPUB 20070115558, of record), fails to disclose in combination with all of the other elements of the claim wherein the second lens group is composed of four to five lenses. Modification of Liu and/or Ito to reduce the number of lenses would require undue experimentation with no guarantee of success.
Claims 3, 7-10, 13-14 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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.
Claim 12 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.
Regarding claim 12, applicant claims “…when two or more lenses…”, which is unclear. Applicant’s use of “when” renders the claim unclear due to it not requiring two or more negative lenses but only places a condition on if there are. Therefore, it isn’t clear if two negative lenses are claimed or not.
For the purposes of this action the office will interpret the claim such that “when” is not present.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim 1-2, 4, 11 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (CN112034591) in view of Ito (PGPUB 20070115558, of record).
Regarding claim 1, Liu discloses an optical imaging system, comprising:
a first lens group (L1), a reflective member (Lp), and a second lens group arranged sequentially along an optical axis (combination of lenses L2-L6),
wherein the first lens group is composed of one lens (L1), and the second lens group is composed of four to five lenses (combination of lenses L2 to L6),
wherein the first lens group has positive refractive power ([0120] where L1 is convex-planar), and the second lens group has positive refractive power as a whole (L2-L6 has a group focal length of approximately +10.7), and
wherein 0 < D1/f <0.05 is satisfied ([0120] where L1 and the prism are cemented, which requires a material to mate the image-side surface of L1 and the object-side surface of the prism and means while the gap is essentially 0, it is still greater than zero due to this material),
where D1 is a distance on the optical axis between an image-side surface of the lens included in the first lens group and the reflective member, and f is a total focal length of the optical imaging system.
Shinohara does not explicitly disclose wherein an effective diameter of the lens included in the first lens group is greater than an effective diameter of the lenses included in the second lens group.
However, Ito teaches another zoom lens wherein the first lens has the largest effective diameter of the system ([0072]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the invention to combine Liu and Ito such that the first lens had the largest effective diameter motivated by providing a larger quantity of peripheral light and therefore improving the peripheral optical efficiency of the second lens group.
Regarding claim 2, modified Liu discloses wherein TTL/f > 1 is satisfied ([0120] where TTL = 11.47 and f = 10.7 giving 1.07),
where TTL is a distance on the optical axis from an object-side surface of the lens included in the first lens group to an imaging surface.
Regarding claim 4, modified Liu discloses wherein the first lens group comprises a first lens, and the second lens group comprises a second lens, a third lens, a fourth lens, and a fifth lens (L1-L5), and v1 > 50 is satisfied, where v1 is an Abbe number of the first lens (See [0120]).
Regarding claim 11, modified Shinohara discloses wherein among the lenses included in the second lens group, one or more lenses has negative refractive power and has a concave object side and a concave image side ([0120]-[0125] where L4 has concave surfaces on the object and image sides).
Regarding claim 15, modified Shinohara discloses a portable electronic device (Abst), comprising: a camera module comprising: the optical imaging system of claim 1, wherein the optical imaging system further comprises an image sensor configured to convert an image of an incident subject into an electrical signal (Abst.)
Claims 5-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu in view of Ito and further in view of Shinohara et al (PGPUB 20170276913, of record).
Regarding claim 5, modified Liu teaches that two plastic materials should be used for lenses 1-7 ([0054]), but fails to disclose wherein an Abbe number of the second lens is less than an Abbe number of the first lens.
However, Shinohara teaches a similar optical system having a first positive lens attached to a prism for turning the image 90 degrees (Fig. 1) wherein an Abbe number of the second lens is less than an Abbe number of the first lens (Table 1 56.6>20.4).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the invention to combine modified Liu and Shinohara such that the first and second lenses were made of two different plastic materials so that second lens has smaller Abbe number motivated by improving aberration correction.
Regarding claim 6, modified Liu teaches wherein 10 < v1-v2 < 60 is satisfied, where v2 is an Abbe number of the second lens (Table 1 of Shinohara 56.6>20.4)
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-16 have been considered but are moot because of the new grounds for rejection.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TRAVIS S FISSEL whose telephone number is (313)446-6573. The examiner can normally be reached on 9AM-5PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Stephone Allen can be reached on (571) 272-2434. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TRAVIS S FISSEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2872
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