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 Objections
Claim 12 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Line 4, “the proximity” should be “proximity”. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 12-21 are 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.
Claim 12 recites the limitation "distribution of the values" in line 12. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. It is unclear what is the term “values” referring to.
Regarding claim 13, the phrase "such as" renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitations following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d).
The remaining claims are rejected due to their dependence.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 12-21 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Regarding claim 12, Coy et al. (U.S. Publication No. 20040154413) teaches a computer-implemented method for determining a belt tension of a drive belt of a machine, based on a sound recording, wherein the drive belt is suitable for transmitting a mechanical torque, the method comprising the steps of: initiating a recording of sound in the proximity of the drive belt; recording the sound during a primary time interval comprising: a part t_b during which the drive belt is not excited; a part t_a during which the drive belt is excited one or more times; discretising the sound of the primary time interval into time samples according to a predefined sampling frequency, thereby obtaining a data set.
However, Coy differs from claim 12 in that Coy does not disclose or suggest “filtering the data set based on a bandpass filter, thereby obtaining a filtered data set; determining within part t_b of the filtered dataset: a trigger threshold value indicative of a distribution of the values therein; a reference spectrum; determining an average excitation spectrum of excitation spectra of one or more secondary time intervals within part t_a of the filtered data set, a secondary time interval comprising: a value which exceeds the trigger threshold value and a root mean square of the values which exceeds a predefined factor; compensating the average excitation spectrum with the reference spectrum, thereby obtaining a compensated excitation spectrum; determining a confidence coefficient based on a highest and second highest extremum within the compensated excitation spectrum; and when the confidence coefficient exceeds a predefined value: determining the belt tension based on a frequency of the highest extremum”, in combination of with all other recited method steps in a computer-implemented method for determining a belt tension of a drive belt of a machine.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
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/XIN Y ZHONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2855