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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(b)
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.
Claims 12-15 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, regards as the invention. In particular, Claim 12 recites the limitation "the controller". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claims 13-15 include the limitation “a direction of a heat source”. The claims depend from claim 12 which already includes the limitation “a direction of a heat source”, making antecedent basis for these limitations confusing. Correction 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 1-5 and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Pub. 2016/0356652 (“Yun”) in view of U.S. Patent Pub. 2020/0041354 (“Ide”).
Claim 1
Yun discloses a point heat detector of a fire sensing system, comprising: a circuit board body having number of corners (circuit board 11); at least two surface mounted thermistors (thermistors 15), each thermistor mounted on different ones of the corners (Fig. 1, corners); an intermediate position between two of the surface mounted thermistors (Fig. 5, paragraph [0053]); and a processor that executes instructions stored in memory to determine a temperature for at least one of the two surface mounted thermistors and the intermediate position (paragraph [0048], processing circuitry).
Yun discloses processing circuitry but does not appear to explicitly disclose the instructions being stored in memory.
Ide discloses an electronic device including a memory storing instructions for execution (paragraphs [0019-0024]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated and a processor that executes instructions stored in memory, as disclosed by Ide, into the device of Yun, for the purpose of providing complex information processing (Ide, paragraph [0019]).
Claim 2
Yun in view of Ide discloses the point heat detector of claim 1, wherein the processor is firmware (Yun, paragraph [0048], disposed on circuit board).
Claim 3
Yun in view of Ide discloses the point heat detector of claim 1, wherein the processor and memory are on the circuit board body (Yun, paragraph [0048]).
Claim 4
Yun in view of Ide discloses the point heat detector of claim 1, wherein the temperatures at the thermistor are measured temperatures and the temperature at the intermediate position is an estimated temperature (Ide, paragraph [0021]).
Claim 5
Yun in view of Ide discloses the point heat detector of claim 1, wherein each thermistor has a measured temperature and each intermediate position has an estimated temperature (Ide, paragraph [0021]).
Claim 9
Yun in view of Ide discloses the point heat detector of claim 1, wherein the circuit board has a thermistor mounted at each corner of the circuit board body (Yun, Fig. 1).
Claim 10
Yun in view of Ide discloses the point heat detector of claim 9, wherein the detector has intermediate positions defined between each of the thermistors (Fig. 5, paragraph [0053]).
Claims 6 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Pub. 2016/0356652 (“Yun”) in view of U.S. Patent Pub. 2020/0041354 (“Ide”), further in view of U.S. Patent No. 6,390,081 (“Novak”).
Claim 6
Yun in view of Ide discloses the point heat detector of claim 1.
Yun in view of Ide does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein each thermistor and each intermediate position has a thermal inertia and wherein the instructions stored in memory apply a temperature compensation adjustment factor to each estimated thermal inertia.
Novak discloses temperature estimation with compensated thermal inertia (col. 8, lns 15-28).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated wherein each thermistor and each intermediate position has a thermal inertia and wherein the instructions stored in memory apply a temperature compensation adjustment factor to each estimated thermal inertia, as disclosed by Novak, into the device of Yun in view of Ide, for the purpose of minimizing a risk of damage to the system (Novak, col. 8, lns 20-28).
Claim 8
Yun in view of Ide discloses the point heat detector of claim 1.
Yun in view of Ide does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein the temperatures at the thermistor are measured temperatures and the temperature at the intermediate position is an estimated temperature and wherein each thermistor has a thermal inertia determined from the measured temperature and each intermediate position has an estimated thermal inertia calculated from the estimated temperature.
Novak discloses temperature estimation with compensated thermal inertia (col. 8, lns 15-28).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated wherein the temperatures at the thermistor are measured temperatures and the temperature at the intermediate position is an estimated temperature and wherein each thermistor has a thermal inertia determined from the measured temperature and each intermediate position has an estimated thermal inertia calculated from the estimated temperature, as disclosed by Novak, into the device of Yun in view of Ide, for the purpose of minimizing a risk of damage to the system (Novak, col. 8, lns 20-28).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Pub. 2016/0356652 (“Yun”) in view of U.S. Patent Pub. 2020/0041354 (“Ide”), further in view of U.S. Patent Pub. 2021/0053819 (“deKoninck”).
Claim 7
Yun in view of Ide discloses the point heat detector of claim 1.
Yun in view of Ide does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein a calculation of a temperature is calculated via a proportional integral observer model for one thermistor.
deKoninck discloses a proportional model for calculating temperatures based on thermistor and resistance (paragraphs [0063-0067]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated wherein a calculation of a temperature is calculated via a proportional integral observer model for one thermistor, as disclosed by deKoninck, into the device of Yun in view of Ide, for the purpose of reducing the impact of thermal gradients (deKoninck, paragraph [0067]).
Claims 11 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Pub. 2016/0356652 (“Yun”) in view of U.S. Patent Pub. 2020/0041354 (“Ide”), further in view of U.S. Patent Pub. 2020/0054905 (“Livchak”).
Claim 11
Yun discloses a point heat detector of a fire sensing system, comprising: a circuit board body having number of corners (circuit board 11); at least two surface mounted thermistors (thermistors 15), each thermistor mounted on different ones of the corners (Fig. 1, corners); an intermediate position between two of the surface mounted thermistors (Fig. 5, paragraph [0053]); and a processor that executes instructions stored in memory to determine an estimated temperature for the intermediate position and instructions stored in memory.
Yun discloses processing circuitry but does not appear to explicitly disclose the instructions being stored in memory.
Ide discloses an electronic device including a memory storing instructions for execution (paragraphs [0019-0024]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated and a processor that executes instructions stored in memory, as disclosed by Ide, into the device of Yun, for the purpose of providing complex information processing (Ide, paragraph [0019]).
Yun in view of Ide does not appear to explicitly disclose the instructions determining thermal inertia and a temperature compensation adjustment factor and applying the temperature compensation adjustment factor to the estimated temperature.
Livchak discloses using thermistors having determined thermal inertia and temperature-time based compensation (paragraph [0039, 0080]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated determining thermal inertia and a temperature compensation adjustment factor and applying the temperature compensation adjustment factor to the estimated temperature, as disclosed by Livchak, into the device of Yun in view of Ide, for the purpose of providing overlap of individual detected fire signals (Livchak, paragraph [0080]).
Claim 16
Yun discloses a point heat detector of a fire sensing system, comprising: a circuit board body having number of corners (circuit board 11); at least two surface mounted thermistors (thermistors 15), each thermistor mounted on different ones of the corners (Fig. 1, corners); an intermediate position between two of the surface mounted thermistors (Fig. 5, paragraph [0053]); and a processor that executes instructions stored in memory to the executable instructions and data from the thermistors (paragraph [0048], processing circuitry).
Yun discloses processing circuitry but does not appear to explicitly disclose the instructions being stored in memory.
Ide discloses an electronic device including a memory storing instructions for execution (paragraphs [0019-0024]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated and a processor that executes instructions stored in memory, as disclosed by Ide, into the device of Yun, for the purpose of providing complex information processing (Ide, paragraph [0019]).
Yun in view of Ide does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein the executable instructions determine a thermal inertia and an estimated temperature for the intermediate position and instructions stored in memory to determine a temperature compensation adjustment factor and applying the temperature compensation adjustment factor to the estimated temperature.
Yun in view of Ide does not appear to explicitly disclose the instructions determining thermal inertia and a temperature compensation adjustment factor and applying the temperature compensation adjustment factor to the estimated temperature.
Livchak discloses using thermistors having determined thermal inertia and temperature-time based compensation (paragraph [0039, 0080]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated determining thermal inertia and a temperature compensation adjustment factor and applying the temperature compensation adjustment factor to the estimated temperature, as disclosed by Livchak, into the device of Yun in view of Ide, for the purpose of providing overlap of individual detected fire signals (Livchak, paragraph [0080]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ERICA S Y LIN whose telephone number is (571)270-7911. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-4, TW M,W.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Douglas X Rodriguez can be reached at (571) 431-0716. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ERICA S LIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853