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
Claims 1–20 have been submitted for examination.
Claims 19–20 have been examined and rejected.
Claims 1–18 are allowed.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1–18 are allowed.
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 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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 19–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ebert et al. (US 12,235,179) in view of Ishizaki et al. (US 2022/0314438).
Regarding claims 19 and 20, Ebert discloses:
A system for touch digitization, comprising:
a silicone hemispherical dome (Ebert, col. 7, ln. 30–40, “After the glue sets, the camera mount may be secured to a mold and filled with silicone rubber. After removing the cured silicone rubber finger from the mold, the sensor may be coated.”) comprising a surface comprising a reflective silver-film layer; (Ebert, col. 4, ln. 50–60, “the gel may be coated with a non-transparent layer that prevents ambient or environmental lighting from interfering with the measurements, and which also may enhance reflectivity of light from within the inner volume at the boundary between the gel and the coating.”, cols. 4–5, ln. 60–10, “the gel slab of a GelSight sensor is coated with a layer of reflective paint and illuminated by LEDs”, col. 7, ln. 40–45, “an aluminum powder, e.g., 1 μm aluminum powder, is mixed with the same silicone rubber as used for the gel-skin. A solvent is added to the mix to decrease viscosity. The coating is then completed by pouring or coating the mix over the sensor surface.”)
an omnidirectional optical system (Ebert, col. 7, ln. 45–60, “This is a particularly appealing application of multi-directional tactile sensing: a robotic finger with multi-directional sensing can make contact with objects at a variety of points and angles, and therefore should be able to localize objects in a broader range of the state space.”) comprising:
a lens configured to capture scattering of internal incident light generated by the reflective silver-film layer; and an image sensor configured to generate image data from data captured by the lens; and the omnidirectional optical system. (Evert, col. 5, ln. 50–65, “the present sensor uses cameras to record the deformation of a gel skin coated with a reflective layer.”)
Ebert does not explicitly teach “one or more non-image sensors disposed underneath”.
In a similar field of endeavor Ishizaki teaches:
one or more non-image sensors disposed underneath. (Ishizaki, [0049], “The sensor 21 is a touch sensation sensor, and detects a force to an object (a pressure exerted by a finger).”)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the system for detecting touch through capturing images of light reflected off of a reflective coated silicone finger as taught by Ebert with the system for placing a pressure sensor in a robotic finger as taught by Ishizaki, the motivation is “touch sensation information, which is the target object information at a time when the target object operated by using the hand part is gripped;” as taught by Ishizaki (Claim 1).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL B PIERORAZIO whose telephone number is (571)270-3679. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday, 8am - 5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nasser Goodarzi can be reached on 5712704195. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL B. PIERORAZIO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426