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 .
This is the second office action for application number 18/404,704, Motorized Mount Assembly For Transducer, filed on January 4, 2024.
Response to Amendment
The amendment to the claims filed on September 4, 2025 does not comply with the requirements of 37 CFR 1.121(c) because the listing of claims does not include the text of all pending claims, see claims 15 and 19 and amended claim 1 does not include all the limitations of the original claim, it does not show every limitations that has been deleted from the claim and/or added to the claim. (Note, an accompanying clean version is not required and should not be presented.)
A) Amendments to the claims:
Each amendment document that includes a change to an existing claim, cancellation of a claim or a submission of a new claim must include a complete listing of all claims in the application. After each claim number in the listing, the status must be indicated in a parenthetical expression, and the text of each pending claim (with markings to show current changes) must be presented. The claims in the listing will replace all prior claims in the application.
(1) The current status of the all the claims in the application, including any previously canceled, not entered or withdrawn claims, must be given in a parenthetical expression following the claim number using only one of (previously presented) and (not entered). The text of all pending claims, including withdrawn claims, must be submitted each time any claim is amended. Canceled and not entered claims must be indicated by only the claim number and status, without presenting the text of the claims.
(2) The text of all claims being currently amended must be presented in the claim listing with markings to indicate the changes that have been made relative to the immediate prior version. The changes in any amended claim must be shown by underlining (for added mater) or strikethrough (for deleted matter) with 2 exceptions: (1) for deletion of five characters or fewer, double brackets may be used (e.g., [[error]]); and (2) if strikethrough cannot be easily perceived (e.g., deletion of the number “4” or certain punctuation marks), double brackets must be used (e.g., [[4]]). As an alternative to using double brackets, however, extra portions of text may be included before and after text being deleted, all in strikethrough, followed by including and underlining the extra text with the desired change (e.g., number 14 as). An accompanying clean version is not required and should not be presented. Only claims of the status “currently amended,” and “withdrawn” that are being amended, may include markings.
(3) The text of pending claims not being currently amended, including withdrawn claims, must be presented in the claim listing in clean version, i.e., without any markings. Any claim text presented in clean version will constitute an assertion that it has not been changed relative to the immediate prior version except to omit markings that may have been presented in the immediate prior version of the claims.
(4) A claim being canceled must be listed in the claim listing with the status identifier “canceled”; the text of the claim must not be presented. Providing an instruction to cancel is optional.
(5) Any claims added by amendment must be presented in the claim listing with the status identifier “(new)”; the text of the claim must not be underlined.
(6) All of the claims in the claim listing must be presented in ascending numerical order. Consecutive canceled, or not entered, claims may be aggregated into one statement (e.g., Claims 1-5 (canceled)).
Specification
The specification is objected to as failing to provide proper antecedent basis for the claimed subject matter. See 37 CFR 1.75(d)(1) and MPEP § 608.01(o). Correction of the following is required: a microcontroller in claim 21, a preprogrammed zone of rotation in claim 21, and a wireless RF remote in claim 23, do not have proper antecedent basis in the specification.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities: claimed subject matter that was presented in the prior claim, dated January 4, 2024, has been improperly deleted from the claim and claim subject matter has been improperly added to the claim, thus the claims 1 and its depended claims, 2-3 and 6-8, have not been further treated on the merits because the scope of the claimed invention has been altered. Appropriate correction is required.
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(s) 21 and 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent No. 12,449,521 to Hesse et al., hereinafter, Hesse in view of U.S. Patent No. 9,459,350 to Betts et al., hereinafter, Betts. Hesse discloses a motorized mount assembly (150) for a sonar transducer (Col. 6, lines 47-53), comprising: a housing (301), an electric motor (531) mounted within the housing, a shaft (305) coupled to the motor and configured to hold the sonar transducer, a position sensor (inherently disclosed via the controller 204 and Col. 5, lines 58-67) configured to detect the rotational position of the shaft, and a microcontroller (208) in communication with the motor and the position sensor, wherein the microcontroller is programmed to: (a) rotate the shaft to scan a preprogrammed zone of rotation (Col. 1, lines 31-37), and (b) receive a user input to defined and scan a user-defined zone of rotation; and further comprising a wireless RF remote (214) configured to transmit signals to the microcontroller to define the user-defined zone.
Betts teaches a mount assembly having a stepper motor (350) that receives control signals to rotate a shaft.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the electric motor in Hesse to have been a stepper motor as taught by Betts for the purpose of providing an alternative, mechanically equivalent means for rotating the shaft in a mount assembly for connecting a sonar transducer to a boat.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 15-20 are allowed.
Claim 22 is 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
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 ANITA M KING whose telephone number is (571)272-6817. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30am-4:00pm.
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/ANITA M KING/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3632 December 13, 2025