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 .
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 10 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.
With respect to claim 10, the limitation that the photo sensing circuit consumes less power than the visible light sensing circuit is indefinite. The limitation is claiming a result not a structure. It is unclear what the scope of the claim is since the power efficiency of an element is variable based on many things, some of which are structure and some are how it is used. Additionally, it is unclear if “less power” is over a lifetime, over a specific time range, at any given moment or an alternative. Clarification is required.
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 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Casey et al. U.S. Publication 2018/0252035 in view of Veskovic U.S. Patent #7,950,827.
With respect to claim 2, Casey discloses a visible light sensor configured for glare detection comprising:
A visible light sensing circuit configured to record at least one image to detect a glare condition (P.0053, second visible light sensor 182)
A control circuit configured to enable the visible light sensing circuit to record the at least one image (P.0053)
Process the at least one image recorded by the visible light sensing circuit to detect the glare condition (P.0053)
However, Casey fails to disclose enabling and processing the image based on an illuminance signal.
Veskovic discloses a window treatment for controlling glare comprising:
A photo sensing circuit configured to generate an illuminance signal (Col.10, l 21-26, 65-67, photosensors 145)
A control circuit configured to receive the illuminance signal from the photo sensing circuit (Col.10, l 21-22, 65-67, control circuit = central processor)
Determining the likelihood of detecting the glare condition based on the illuminance signals (Col.16, l 65- Col.17, l 5)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to first use the illuminance signals of Veskovic to determine if glare is a potential problem before doing Casey’s image analysis to locate the glare since image analysis is more time and energy intensive, so preventing unnecessary analyses would save both.
With respect to claim 11 and 17, Casey discloses a visible light sensor for glare detection method comprising:
Recording at least one image to detect a glare condition (P.0053, second visible light sensor 182)
Recording the at least one image (P.0053)
Processing the at least one image recorded by the visible light sensing circuit to detect the glare condition (P.0053)
However, Casey fails to disclose enabling and processing the image based on an illuminance signal.
Veskovic discloses a window treatment for controlling glare comprising:
Generating an illuminance signal (Col.10, l 21-26, 65-67, photosensors 145)
Determining the likelihood of detecting the glare condition based on the illuminance signals (Col.16, l 65- Col.17, l 5)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to first use the illuminance signals of Veskovic to determine if glare is a potential problem before doing Casey’s image analysis to locate the glare since image analysis is more time and energy intensive, so preventing unnecessary analyses would save both.
With respect to claim 3, 4, 12, 13, 18, and 19, Casey in view of Veskovic discloses all of the limitations as applied to claim 2, 11 and 17 above. However, Casey fails to disclose the control circuit being configured to determine a preset illuminance value based on the illuminance signal and to take an image when the illuminance value exceeds a threshold.
Veskovic discloses:
The control circuit configured to determine a preset illuminance value based on the illuminance signal (Col.16, l 65-67, preset illuminance value = “dead-band”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to use a preset illuminance value, or expected value, for the photosensors based on the photosensors in order to create a threshold for change as in Veskovic applied to the image analysis of Casey for the reasons described above, since having a threshold for illuminance values measured prior to image analysis will result in fewer images collected and analyzed, saving time and energy.
With respect to claim 5, 6, 14, 15, 20, and 21, Casey in view of Veskovic discloses all of the limitations as applied to claims 2, 3, 11, 12, and 17 above. In addition, Casey discloses:
The visible light sensing circuit is configured to periodically record images (P.0040)
However, Casey fails to disclose that the recording of images is based on the illuminance signal and that the images are not recorded when the illuminance does not indicate the likelihood of glare. This has been addressed above with respect to claim 2 that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to record images only when the illuminance of Veskovic indicates a necessity to do in order to save time and energy.
With respect to claim 7 and 16, Casey in view of Veskovic discloses all of the limitations as applied to claim 2 and 11 above. In addition, Casey discloses:
The control circuit is configured to process/ Processing the at least one image recorded by the visible light sensing circuit to detect the glare condition at a processing frequency (P.0067)
With respect to claim 10, Casey in view of Veskovic discloses all of the limitations as applied to claim 2 above. However, Casey and Veskovic are silent with respect to the power efficiency of the photo sensing circuit compared to the visible light sensing circuit.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention as a design effective variable to select a power efficiency for each component in a device based on costs and priorities. One of ordinary skill would recognize that selecting one circuit to consume less power than another depends on many variables and manners in which those circuits are used and it would be within that skill to select which one consumes less power based on the design choices.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8 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 REBECCA CAROLE BRYANT whose telephone number is (571)272-9787. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 12-4 pm.
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REBECCA CAROLE. BRYANT
Examiner
Art Unit 2877
/REBECCA C BRYANT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2877