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 Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: “a storage section configured to store pass judgment . . .”; “a judgment section configured to extract the . . .”; and “a reference control section configured to, . . .”, in claim 1, and “judgement characteristic information production section configured to extract . . .”; “a storage section configured to store . . .”; “a judgment section configured to extract . . .”; and “a reference control section configured to, . . .” in claim 8.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
35 U.S.C. 101 requires that a claimed invention must fall within one of the four eligible categories of invention (i.e. process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter) and must not be directed to subject matter encompassing a judicially recognized exception as interpreted by the courts. MPEP 2106. The four eligible categories of invention include: (1) process which is an act, or a series of acts or steps, (2) machine which is an concrete thing, consisting of parts, or of certain devices and combination of devices, (3) manufacture which is an article produced from raw or prepared materials by giving to these materials new forms, qualities, properties, or combinations, whether by hand labor or by machinery, and (4) composition of matter which is all compositions of two or more substances and all composite articles, whether they be the results of chemical union, or of mechanical mixture, or whether they be gases, fluids, powders or solids. MPEP 2106(I).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as not falling within one of the four statutory categories of invention because the claimed invention is directed to computer program per se. See MPEP 2106(I). A claim directed toward a non-transitory computer-readable medium having the program encoded thereon establishes a sufficient functional relationship between the program and a computer so as to remove it from the realm of “program per se”. MPEP 2111.05(III). Hence, adding the limitation of “stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium” would resolve this issue.
Three categories of subject matter are found to be judicially recognized exceptions to 35 U.S.C. § 101 (i.e. patent ineligible) (1) laws of nature, (2) physical phenomena, and (3) abstract ideas. MPEP 2106(II). To be patent-eligible, a claim directed to a judicial exception must as whole be directed to significantly more than the exception itself. See 2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility, 79 Fed. Reg. 74618, 74624 (Dec. 16, 2014). Hence, the claim must describe a process or product that applies the exception in a meaningful way, such that it is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. Id
Claims 1, 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea) without significantly more. Claim 1 is directed to a storage section configured to store pass judgment characteristic information . . ; a judgment section configured to extract the characteristic amounts from monitoring data items . . . and to successively perform pass/fail judgment of the judgment targets . . .; and a reference control section configured to, update the pass judgment characteristic information, and perform pass/fail judgment based on the updated pass judgment characteristic information, without additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Specifically, meets step 2A prong 1, for including one or more abstract ideas as follows, the storage section for storing characteristic information, referring to gathered data under insignificant Extra-solution activity, as pre-solution activity 2106.05(g); a judgment section configured to extract the characteristic amounts from monitoring data items, as referring to mental process by observing the monitoring information and analyzing (mental process: concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) (see MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III)), and to successively perform pass/fail judgment of the judgment targets, as referring to mental process of analyzing and judging the monitoring information as pass or fail; and a reference control section configured to, update the pass judgment characteristic information, as referring to mental process of judging and opinion of the monitoring data, by possible using pen and paper as well, and continue the pass/fail judgment based on the updated information, as further mental process of the judgement step discussed above. Claim 1 further recites an apparatus as a generic placeholder, comprising the functions above of the claim. Applicant’s published disclosure (Para [0077]) recites the combination of the sections of the apparatus of the claim is a computer. Therefore, claim 1 will be further evaluated in view of the disclosed computer, in order to determine whether the computer in the specification adds meaningful limitation to the claim under the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim. While the claimed functions by the computer are more elaborated towards Applicant’s invention, in the Applicant’s specification, the claim itself fails to include the meaningful specifics of the computer’s function in carrying out the invention. Examiner’s assessment, therefore, of the claimed apparatus e.g. the computer, is simply referring to performing a mental process on a generic computer specifically, by displaying the insignificant gathered target data on a computer monitor, followed by analyzing and judging the data by a user. Hence, the broadest reasonable interpretation of Applicant’s disclosed computer does not add significantly more to the judicial exception of the claim.
Claim 1 will further be assessed under step 2A prong 2, to whether the claim recite additional element that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Limitations that the courts have found indicative that an additional element (or combination of elements) may have integrated the exception into a practical application include are as follows:
• An improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, as discussed in MPEP §§ 2106.04(d)(1) and 2106.05(a);
• Applying or using a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.04(d)(2);
• Implementing a judicial exception with, or using a judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(b);
• Effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(c); and
• Applying or using the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(e).
In view of the foregoing list of practical applications above, and the current language of Applicant’s claimed invention, Examiner does not recognize any additional element to render the exception into practical application. Therefore, claim 1 fails step 2A prong two. Additionally, the claim is evaluated for additional elements to determine whether they amount to an inventive concept requires considering them both individually and in combination to ensure that they amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself. Most of the considerations were already evaluated in Step 2A Prong Two. Thus, in Step 2B, further considerations are as follows:
• Carry over their identification of the additional element(s) in the claim from Step 2A Prong Two;
• Carry over their conclusions from Step 2A Prong Two on the considerations discussed in MPEP §§ 2106.05(a) - (c), (e) (f) and (h):
• Re-evaluate any additional element or combination of elements that was considered to be insignificant extra-solution activity per MPEP § 2106.05(g), because if such re-evaluation finds that the element is unconventional or otherwise more than what is well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field, this finding may indicate that the additional element is no longer considered to be insignificant; and
• Evaluate whether any additional element or combination of elements are other than what is well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field, or simply append well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception, per MPEP § 2106.05(d).
Examiner in view of the above considerations, does not recognize additional elements by themselves or as a whole to amount significantly more than judicial exception. Therefore, claim 1 fails step 2B and not eligible under 101.
Regrading claim 7, arguments above with respect to the apparatus claim 1 similarly applies to this program claim and hence the claim is ineligible under 101.
Regrading claim 8, arguments above with respect to claim 1 similarly applies to this system claim except the claim adds additional element of judgement characteristic information production section configured to extract characteristic amounts from previously collected data, referring to as additional step of gathering data classified as insignificant Extra-solution activity specifically, pre-solution activity. The extra element of gathering data in addition to other elements of the claimed invention as discussed above with respect to the apparatus claim 1 above, does not integrate the judicial exception, by itself under step 2A prong two, or as a whole under step 2B, to either practical application or significantly more. Therefore, claim 8 is ineligible under 101.
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.
Claims 1-3, 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP H05332740 A to Hironori (Applicant’s IDS, please refer to the attached USPTO version translation) in view of US 2023/0005120 A1 to Kondo et al (hereinafter ‘Kondo’).
Regrading claim 1, Hironori discloses a judgment apparatus for judging a judgment target as pass using a monitoring data item of the judgment target (Para [0005] and system of Fig. 1, wherein an image of the circuit board including an image of the connection portion of the component is generated by photographing the surface of the circuit board, and (b) a planar distribution of the gray value of the inspection portion of the image of the non-defective circuit board is determined, inherently as pass determination), comprising: a storage section configured to store pass judgment characteristic information produced using characteristic amounts extracted from previously collected monitoring data items of judgment targets judged as pass (Page 2, Para 5, wherein an average conformity expressed by the average proximity to the characteristic is obtained as an inspection reference, and (c) an inspection target obtained by performing the arithmetic processing of (b) on the image of the circuit board to be inspected. From the set of data expressing the above and the characteristics of the non-defective circuit board, inherently as stored pass judgment of previous characteristic detection, the non-defective degree expressed by the closeness of the inspection target to the characteristics of the non-defective circuit board is obtained); a judgment section configured to extract the characteristic amounts from monitoring data items of judgment targets sequentially input (Para [0034], in steps ST5 and ST6, the steps ST1 and ST2 of the above-mentioned initial learning procedure are executed on the substrate to be inspected. That is, the image of the inspection target board is captured (image input), the position of the inspection target component on the image is obtained from the input image, the image of the connection part (solder part) of the inspection target component is cut out, and this cutout image A mosaic image is generated from the image and gradation, as the extracted characteristic amount, conversion is performed to obtain an inspection target vector z corresponding to the non-defective product vector x) and to successively perform pass/fail judgment of the judgment targets based on the pass judgment characteristic information (Para [0039], wherein in step ST8, the quality of the inspection target substrate is determined, as the pass judgment, by comparing the non-defectiveness obtained in step ST7 with the average non-defectiveness obtained in step ST4); and a reference control section configured to, when one of the judgment targets is judged as pass in the successive pass/fail judgment, use the characteristic amount of the judgment target judged as pass to update the pass judgment characteristic information (Para [0044], wherein in step ST9, the vector to be inspected for the circuit board to be inspected, which is determined to be non-defective in the above-described inspection procedure. With z, the eigenvector u.0.(i) and the eigenvalue λ.0.(i) are updated as follows), wherein the judgment section is configured to perform pass/fail judgment of a judgment target subsequent to the judgment target judged as pass based on the updated pass judgment characteristic information (Para [0044], wherein subsequent inspections are carried out by using the above two types of updated values to find the average goodness degree and the goodness degree of the substrate to be inspected. When the inspection object is determined to be good, the above u.1.(i) and λ.1.(i) are updated to u.2.(i) and λ.2.(i), respectively). Hironori does not specifically disclose fail judgments. Kondo disclose performing fail judgment of the target object (para [0071], wherein the inspection image is input to the pass/fail determination portion, and the image is determined whether it is a non-defect candidate or a defect candidate by using the final non-defect estimation parameter 111 (123)). Hironori and Kondo are combinable because the both disclose object inspection. Therefore, before the effective filing data of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art to combine the performing fail judgment of the target object, of Kondo’s apparatus with Hironori’s in order to determine whether the inspection image acquired is of a defect candidate object (Para [0011]).
Regrading claim 2, in the combination of Hironori and Kondo, Hironori further discloses wherein the pass judgment characteristic information is information centered on an average value of the characteristic amounts extracted from the monitoring data items of the judgment targets judged as pass (Page 2, Para 6, wherein when the connection state of the circuit components is determined by comparison, and (e) when it is determined to be non-defective, as pass judgment, in (d) above, a new non-defective circuit board is obtained from the set of data expressing the inspection target and the characteristics of the non-defective circuit board. The average non-defectiveness are calculated, as the average value of the characteristic, and the inspection standard is updated with those values.), the reference control section is configured to, when one of the judgment targets is judged as pass in the successive pass/fail judgment, add the characteristic amount of the judgment target judged as pass to the average value of the pass judgment characteristic information used in the judgment as pass and to average the resulting value to update the pass judgment characteristic information (Page 3, Par 3, wherein when it is determined that the product is a non-defective product, a new non-defective circuit board feature and an average non-defective product are calculated from a set of data expressing the inspection target and the feature of the non-defective circuit board, and the values are used as the values. By updating the inspection standard), and the judgment section is configured to perform pass/fail judgment of a next judgment target based on the updated pass judgment characteristic information with the average value shifted by the characteristic amount of the preceding judgment target judged as pass (Page 6, Para 44, wherein subsequent inspections are carried out by using the above two types of updated values to find the average goodness degree and the goodness degree of the substrate to be inspected).
Regrading claim 3, in the combination of Hironori and Kondo, Hironori further discloses wherein the pass judgment characteristic information is information centered on an average value of the characteristic amounts extracted from the monitoring data items of the judgment targets judged as pass (Page 2, Para 6, wherein when the connection state of the circuit components is determined by comparison, and (e) when it is determined to be non-defective, as pass judgment, in (d) above, a new non-defective circuit board is obtained from the set of data expressing the inspection target and the characteristics of the non-defective circuit board. The average non-defectiveness are calculated, as the average value of the characteristic, and the inspection standard is updated with those values.), the reference control section is configured to, when one of the judgment targets is judged as pass in the successive pass/fail judgment, add the characteristic amounts of multiple judgment targets judged as pass before the judgment target judged as good to the pass judgment characteristic information used in the judgment as pass and to average the resulting value to update the pass judgment characteristic information (Page 3, Par 3, wherein when it is determined that the product is a non-defective product, a new non-defective circuit board feature and an average non-defective product are calculated from a set of data expressing the inspection target and the feature of the non-defective circuit board, and the values are used as the values. By updating the inspection standard), and the judgment section is configured to perform pass/fail judgment of a subsequent judgment target based on the updated pass judgment characteristic information with the average value shifted by the characteristic amounts of the multiple judgment targets previously judged as pass (Para [0044], wherein subsequent inspections are carried out by using the above two types of updated values to find the average goodness degree and the goodness degree of the substrate to be inspected. When the inspection object is determined to be good, the above u.1.(i) and λ .1 .sup.(i) are updated to u .2 (i) and λ .2 .(i) , respectively).
Regrading claim 7, Hironori discloses a program comprising instructions executable by a computer apparatus configured to judge a judgment target as pass or fail using a monitoring data item of the judgment target (Para [0012], wherein a memory 8 and a computer 9 that performs image processing operations, inherently as including instruction, according to input information from the memory 8.), wherein the instructions, when executed by the computer apparatus, cause the computer apparatus to provide: Please refer to the corresponding apparatus claim 1 above for further teachings of the claim.
Regrading claim 8, Hironori discloses a judgment system for judging a judgment target as pass or fail using a monitoring data item of the judgment target (Para [0005] and system of Fig. 1, wherein an image of the circuit board including an image of the connection portion of the component is generated by photographing the surface of the circuit board, and (b) a planar distribution of the gray value of the inspection portion of the image of the non-defective circuit board is determined, inherently as pass determination), comprising: a pass/fail judgment characteristic information production section configured to extract characteristic amounts from previously collected monitoring data items of judgment targets judged as pass and to produce pass judgment characteristic information using the extracted characteristic amounts (Para [0022], wherein next, in step ST3, a "non-defective feature vector", as previously collected characteristic amount, is obtained as data representing the characteristic of the non-defective substrate from the set of non-defective vectors obtained in step ST2. This is done as follows. Assuming that the non-defective product vector is x.sub.0 and the K-dimensional vector space spanned by x is V.K , the non-defective product vector set X is represented by X = { x.0 | x.0 εV .K }. This X represent the characteristics of non-defective products extracted.); Please refer to corresponding apparatus claim 1 above for further teachings of the claim.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hironori in view of Kondo and further in view of JP 2005265661 A to Hirokazu (Please refer to the attached USPTO translation version).
Regarding claim 5, Hironori and Kondo does not disclose wherein the characteristic amount is a luminance value at each pixel position in the image data the pass judgment characteristic information is information centered on an average luminance value of the luminance values at each pixel position in the image data items of the judgment targets judged as pass, and the reference control section is configured to add a luminance value at each pixel position extracted from one of the judgment targets judged as pass in the successive pass/fail judgment to the average luminance value at each pixel position of the pass judgment characteristic information applied to the pass/fail judgment and to average the resulting value to update the pass judgment characteristic information. Hirokazu discloses the characteristic amount is a luminance value at each pixel position in the image data (Page 3, Para 8, wherein next, it is considered that the statistic calculation process (S6) is repeated to obtain the average and standard deviation of the luminance values for each pixel.), the pass judgment characteristic information is information centered on an average luminance value of the luminance values at each pixel position in the image data items of the judgment targets judged as pass (Page 4, Para 2, wherein the pass / fail judgment is made with reference to the judgment information storage unit 5 with respect to the area and the number of regions composed of the extracted pixels (S14)), and the reference control section is configured to add a luminance value at each pixel position extracted from one of the judgment targets judged as pass in the successive pass/fail judgment to the average luminance value at each pixel position of the pass judgment characteristic information applied to the pass/fail judgment and to average the resulting value to update the pass judgment characteristic information (Pages 4-5, Para 6, wherein accordingly, the sum S (x, y) of luminance values, the sum of squares SS (x, y), and the number of samples N (x, y) are updated(S16). Similarly to S8, the average value E (x, y) and standard deviation σ (x, y) for each pixel are recalculated by Equation 2 and stored in the statistic storage unit 8 (S17)). Hironori, Kondo and Hirokazu are combinable because they all disclose object inspection. Therefore, before the effective filing data of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art to combine the characteristic amount being a luminance value at each pixel position in the image data and the averaging the luminance, of Hirokazu’s apparatus with Hironori’s and Kondo’s so that to reduce misjudgment by iteratively recalculating the average of the luminance of the pixel (Page 2, Para 6).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hironori in view of Kondo and further in view of JP 2020500308 A to Dacheng et al (hereinafter ‘Dacheng’, Please refer to the attached USPTO translation version).
Regarding claim 6, Hironori and Kondo do not specifically disclose wherein the pass judgment characteristic information includes second pass judgment characteristic information for determining whether the abnormality falls within a predetermined acceptable range, the judgment section is configured to perform pass/fail judgment processing including first judgment processing of determining the presence or absence of abnormality in any one of the judgment targets based on the first pass judgment characteristic information and second judgment processing of determining whether the abnormality falls within the predetermined acceptable range based on the second pass judgment characteristic information when it is determined that there is any abnormality, and the reference control section is configured to, when one of the judgment targets is judged as pass in the successive pass/fail judgment, use the characteristic amount of the judgment target judged as pass to update the first pass judgment characteristic information. Dacheng discloses wherein the pass judgment characteristic information includes second pass judgment characteristic information for determining whether the abnormality falls within a predetermined acceptable range (Page 4, para 6-7, wherein The examination result by the judgment examination apparatus 140 can be transmitted to the acceptability judgment apparatus 120 via the network 180, the determination and examination apparatus 140 estimates a range of good error values of the test object 20 that is good from the distribution of the measured error values, and additionally adds a defect of the test object 20 that is defective. The range of the error value can be estimated.), the judgment section is configured to perform pass/fail judgment processing including first judgment processing of determining the presence or absence of abnormality in any one of the judgment targets based on the first pass judgment characteristic information (Page 4, para 1, wherein the pass / fail determination device 120 can determine whether the test object 20 is good or bad. The pass / fail determination device 120 can determine whether the test object 20 is good or bad by determining whether the measurement value generated by the measurement device 100 is within a predetermined range) and second judgment processing of determining whether the abnormality falls within the predetermined acceptable range based on the second pass judgment characteristic information when it is determined that there is any abnormality (Page 4, Para 3, wherein the determination examination device 140 can determine whether there is an error in the quality determination of the test object 20 by the quality determination device 120. For example, there is a case where the inspection body 20 determined to be good by the quality judgment device 120 is actually defective.), and the reference control section is configured to, when one of the judgment targets is judged as pass in the successive pass/fail judgment, use the characteristic amount of the judgment target judged as pass to update the first pass judgment characteristic information (Page 6, Para 6, wherein the pass / fail determination device 120 can update a reference value to be compared with the error value according to a user input. The pass / fail judgment device 120 can graphically show the pass /fail judgment result, the judgment examination result, and the reference value for the test object 20.). Hironori, Kondo and Dacheng are combinable because they all disclose object inspection. Therefore, before the effective filing data of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art to combine the pass judgment characteristic information including a second pass judgment characteristic information for determining whether the abnormality falls within a predetermined acceptable range, of Dacheng’s apparatus with Hironori’s and Kondo’s so that the accuracy can be improved as compared with a case where a determination error is determined for some test objects (Page 4, Para 6).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 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. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art or the prior art of record specifically, Hironori, Kondo and Hirokazu, does not disclose:
. . . . wherein the reference control section is configured to apply weight values to the characteristic amounts of the multiple judgment targets judged as good before the judgment target judged as good and to add and average the characteristic amounts with the weight values applied thereto to update the pass judgment characteristic information, of claim 4 combined with other features and elements of the claim.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHERVIN K NAKHJAVAN whose telephone number is (571)272-5731. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00-12:00 PST.
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/SHERVIN K NAKHJAVAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2672