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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Information Disclosure Statement(s)
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) is/are being considered by the examiner.
Priority
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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.
Claim(s) 1-3, and 10-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pohl et al. (Publication No.: DE 10 2020 104 230 A1, herein known as D1, a machine translation is provided with this Office Action).
With respect to claim 1, D1 discloses an apparatus for braking power monitoring and safety-related locking of a drive of a technical system with two machine parts that are movable relative to one another and that are moved towards one another by the drive at a defined actuation interval (price device 1; abstract, Figs. 1 and 2), the apparatus comprising:
a first controller with an input for receiving an encoder signal from an encoder coupled to a drive shaft of the drive and with an output for outputting an error signal,
wherein the first controller is configured to:
determine a value for an acceleration from a rotation amount measurement device (35) signal in response to a brake coupled to the drive shaft acting with its greatest possible braking force on the drive shaft of the drive (“Next, the control unit 53 has the average slip angular velocity ω (= dθm / dt) time-differentiated based on the average slip angle θm calculated in step S3, and the average slip angular acceleration a (=) time-differentiated twice. d .sup.2 θm / dt .sup.2 ) is calculated and stored in the storage unit 52 (step S4).” and “Next, the control unit 53 determines whether or not any of the slip angle θ, the average slip angle θm, the average slip angular velocity ω, and the average slip angle acceleration a exceeds a predetermined threshold value (upper limit value) (step S5).” (Examiner’s emphasis).
D1 does not explicitly disclose that the measurement device is an encoder or that the breaking force is the greatest possible braking force.
However, encoders are well known rotation amount measuring devices and would be known and obvious to try without undue experimentation to use an encoder as the specific measurement device. It is also noted that D2, cited and utilized below, uses an encoder 40 for the press to determine braking abnormalities, showing their use in the art.
Furthermore, Applicant states in [0018] “In mechanical presses, braking is usually always performed with the maximum possible braking force, since the braking force is determined exclusively by the force of a spring assembly in the brake.”, and it is noted that D1 is a mechanical press that utilizes a spring in the braking system (“This brake 132 is a so-called wet brake, and is an outer hub 132a fixed to the unit cover 135, an inner hub 132b fixed to the input shaft 133 and rotating in conjunction with it, and a brake disc Db1 and an inner hub linked to the outer hub 132a. It includes a disc group 132c in which a plurality of brake discs Db2 interlocking with the 132b are alternately stacked, and a piston 132d.”, and “Normally, the piston 132d is pressed by a spring (not shown) in the direction of pressure contact with the disc group 132c side.” (Examiner’s emphasis). Therefore, by Applicant’s admission, the braking force utilized in the testing of D1 appears to inherently or would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be the greatest breaking force.
D1 also does not explicitly disclose an apparatus wherein the first controller is configured to: lock the drive in a safety-related manner in response to the determined value exceeding a limit value stored in the first controller.
D1 further teaches “That is, assuming that the brake abnormality detected by the slip angle θ requires immediate stop of the device, this abnormality can be detected more stably by the average slip angle θm.” and “Here, the setting of the threshold value is not particularly limited, and in the present embodiment, the threshold value T0 of the slip angle θ (not shown), the threshold value T1 of the average slip angle θm, the threshold value T2 of the average slip angular velocity ω, and the average slip angular acceleration a. The threshold value T3 of is set to a value different from each other.” (Examiner’s emphasis).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed that the “requires the immediate stop of the device” could utilize “locking the drive in a safety-related manner” as a known way to safely stop the device to prevent danger to equipment and personnel.
With respect to claim 2, D1 further discloses an apparatus wherein the first controller is further configured to determine a value for a difference between the determined value for the acceleration and the stored limit value and to output the value for the difference (comparison with threshold T3 in the citation above).
With respect to claim 3, D1 further discloses an apparatus wherein the first controller is configured to determine one or more further parameters of at least one of the technical system and the first controller in order to determine a total stopping time (see the recitations in claim 1 above and description of the method of Fig. 4).
See also the rejection of claim 4 below, which teaches a device that measures the exact stopping time to determine abnormalities.
With respect to claim 10, while D1 does not disclose an apparatus further comprising two mutually redundant processing units providing two independent processing channels, it has been held that a duplication of parts is an obvious variant over the prior art of record. In this case, having a second redundant processor for the calculations will ensure accuracy of the system (as the two can be compared), and resilience of the system if one of the processing units fails or needs to be replaced/repaired.
It is also noted that D1 has three abnormality detecting means, each for a different calculation, and so utilizing multiple processing units is known in the system
With respect to claim 11, while D1 does not explicitly disclose an apparatus wherein the first controller is configured to detect, every millisecond or less, at least one angular position of the drive shaft as an encoder signal, it would have been obvious to try for one of ordinary skill in the art to use this timing to obtain the optimal amount of data for the necessary calculations in the stable period (D1 teaches calculating the average slip angle from the average value of slip angles in a predetermined number of consecutive shots (or a predetermined time corresponding thereto) in a stable period).
With respect to claim 12, while D1 does not explicitly disclose an apparatus wherein the first controller is a standard controller that processes the encoder signal in a single-channel manner, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to try and require no undue experimentation to utilize a “standard” controller type that can read the encoder signal for the methods processing.
With respect to claim 13, D1 further discloses an apparatus wherein the safety-related locking of the drive of the technical system includes switching off the drive (see modification to claim 1 above, where D1 explicitly states to stop the device which would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to complete by turning off the drive).
With respect to claim 14, D1 further discloses an apparatus wherein the error signal is a switch-off signal for stopping the drive (see modification to claim 1 above, where D1 explicitly states to stop the device which would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to complete by turning off the drive, the error signal for the abnormality triggers the “stop”).
With respect to claim 15, see the rejection of claim 1 above.
With respect to claim 16, see the rejection of claim 2 above.
With respect to claim 17, see the rejection of claim 3 above.
Claim(s) 4-6, 9, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 as applied to claims 1 and 3 above, and further in view of Hata (Publication No.: JPH07290296A, herein known as D2, a machine translation is provided herewith).
With respect to claim 4, D1 does not disclose an apparatus wherein one of the further parameters is a signal propagation time of a stop signal or a switching time of a brake valve.
D2 teaches using an encoder 40 to determine the press speed and the deceleration time (“The press speed and the deceleration time are measured by the bit change of the encoder 40. The bit change of the encoder 40 until the press is stopped after the press stop signal is input is shown in FIG. That is, the CPU 44 calculates the press speed in the L portion by the time T M of each bit. At 0 point, press stop signal is input to switch electromagnetic air switching valve 41, clutch OFF, brake ONThen, the brake is turned on and the deceleration is started at the point M after 1 hour from T. Time T 1 is the brake response time, during which the press speed does not change. After that, the press stops at point N after T 2 which is the press stop time. Then, as described above, the press stop time T 2 can be predicted by measuring the deceleration time T 3 at the deceleration time detection level on the way”), as well as the overall stop time “Next, the relationship between the press speed and the deceleration time will be described. FIG. 2 is a graph showing the relationship between the press speed and the time from the press stop signal input to the press stop. The vertical axis represents the press speed and the horizontal axis represents the time. When the press stop signal is input at point 0 at the press speed S 1 , the press speed starts decelerating after the brake response time T 1 , and then the press stops after the time T 2 as shown by the curve a. When the brake deteriorates in performance due to wear or the like, a curve b as shown by a thin line is formed, and the press stop time becomes T 4 , resulting in overrun. The press stop time T 2 can be predicted by measuring the deceleration time T 3 at the deceleration time detection level S 2 (S 1 × X%, where X <1). Similarly, the press stop time T 4 can be predicted by measuring the deceleration time T 5 at the deceleration time detection level S 2 . Therefore, the curve c shown by the broken line immediately before the overrunBy setting the deceleration time T n at the deceleration time detection level of, it is possible to detect the brake abnormality (danger of overrun) before the press is stopped. When the press speed is S 3 which is high speed, the curve d is obtained. In this case as well, the press stop is performed similarly by measuring the deceleration time T 7 at the deceleration time detection level S 4 (S 3 × X%). The time T 6 can be predicted.”. Both of these values are used to determine an abnormality in the braking (“Compare with n . When the measured value of the deceleration time exceeds the set value T 1 + T n of the deceleration time, the CPU 44 judges this and sends a signal to the abnormality transmitter 47 to generate an abnormal output.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the apparatus of D1 to incorporate the timing determinations of D2 to improve abnormality detection by including an alternative testing method for a pressing machine using the same encoding devices already present.
With respect to claim 5, the combination of D1 and D2 further discloses an apparatus wherein one of the further parameters is a switching time of a brake valve (see recitations in claim 4 above).
With respect to claim 6, D1 does not disclose an apparatus further comprising a second controller that is couplable to the first controller to provide one or more fault detectors.
D2 teaches an alternative method of determining a braking abnormality (see rejection of claim 4 above).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the apparatus of D1 to incorporate the timing determinations of D2 to improve abnormality detection by including an alternative testing method for a pressing machine using the same encoding devices already present. This method would be further obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be controlled by a second, separate controller, as it has been held that making integral or separable is an obvious variant over the prior art.
With respect to claim 9, while the combination of D1 and D2 does not explicitly disclose an apparatus wherein the second controller has a multi-channel, redundant design, using one would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art without any undue experimentation to establish the measured values with more accuracy.
With respect to claim 18, see the rejection of claim 6 above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-8 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.
Citation of Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kuehn (Publication No.: US 2022/0205525 A1)
Britch (Patent No.: US 8,108,191 B1)
Wells et al. (Publication No.: US 2011/0245970 A1)
Inquiry
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DIANA HANCOCK whose telephone number is (571)270-7547. The examiner can normally be reached on 10AM-6PM EST M-F.
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/D.H/Examiner, Art Unit 2852
4/3/2026
/STEPHANIE E BLOSS/Supervisory Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2852
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