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 § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 3-5 and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Matthias et al. (DE102017208694, see attached English translation).
Regarding claim 1, Matthias teaches a method for estimating a state of wear of a wiper strip of a wiper blade for a wiper system of a motor vehicle (Paragraph 1, “The invention relates to a method for determining the state of a wiper blade of a wiping system for cleaning a surface of a motor vehicle”), wherein the method is implemented by a mobile communication terminal (Paragraph 14, “smartphone”), the method comprising: activating the mobile communication terminal by communicating information to the mobile communication terminal, via a human-machine interface (Paragraph 14, “a user who wants to know the current state of the wiper blade can query the state via their smartphone”); determining a geographical position of the motor vehicle (Paragraph 20, “a GPS receiver 123 for locating the motor vehicle 14 and for obtaining location-related information”); evaluating the state of wear of the wiper strip on the basis of the activation step and the geographical position (Paragraph 5, “A GPS signal, as an environmental parameter” and Paragraph 21 “The environmental parameters g detected by the sensors 12 are sent to the central computing unit 22 of the motor vehicle 14.This computing unit 22 in turn outputs a state z of the wiper blade 10 on a display 20.This display 20 can be contained in the motor vehicle 14 or arranged on a user's smartphone 220”); and generating an alert when the state of wear reaches a threshold level (Paragraph 10, “The replacement of the wiper blade is preferably suggested by the indicated condition. The processing unit determines whether the condition necessitates a replacement of the wiper blade, and preferably which type of wiper blade is recommended for the type of use of the motor vehicle”).
Regarding claim 3, Matthias teaches collecting at least one meteorological datum correlated to the geographical position of the vehicle (Paragraph 20, “a GPS receiver 123 for locating the motor vehicle 14 and for obtaining location-related information”).
Regarding claim 4, Matthias teaches wherein the at least one datum comprises at least one of the following: a datum representative of ultraviolet radiation to which the wiper strip is exposed, referred to as the ultraviolet radiation datum; a datum representative of an ambient temperature surrounding the wiper strip, referred to as the ambient temperature datum (Paragraph 5).
Regarding claim 5, Matthias teaches wherein, during the evaluating of the state of wear of the wiper strip, a rate of aging of the wiper strip is calculated on the basis of at least one of the ultraviolet radiation and ambient temperature data according to a formula depending on the ultraviolet radiation and/or the ambient temperature (Paragraph 5).
Regarding claim 9, Matthias teaches wherein the mobile communication terminal is a multifunction mobile telephone or a tablet (Paragraph 14, “smartphone”).
Regarding claim 10, Matthias teaches a non-transitory computer readable medium containing program instructions for causing a processor to perform the method of claim 1 (Paragraphs 8-9 and 14).
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 6-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matthias et al. (DE102017208694, see attached English translation) in view of Nicolas et al (WO2018059869, see attached English translation).
Regarding claim 6, Matthias teaches all the features of claim 5 as outlined above, Matthias is silent about wherein the formula is of Arrhenius type.
Nicolas teaches wherein the formula is of Arrhenius type (Paragraph 92).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to use Arrhenius law to evaluate the state of wear of the wiper because Arrhenius law provides a simple, effective model for predicting how fast things happen (like spoilage or chemical changes) across different temperatures.
Regarding claim 7, Matthias teaches all the features of claim 5 as outlined above, Matthias is silent about during the evaluating of the state of wear, the rate of aging is compared to a threshold value.
Nicolas teaches during the evaluating of the state of wear, the rate of aging is compared to a threshold value (Paragraph 41).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to compare Matthias’ rate of aging to a threshold value because it would allow a warning message aimed at replacing the wiper blade send to a user.
Claims 2 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matthias et al. (DE102017208694, see attached English translation).
Regarding claim 2, Matthias teaches all the features of claim 5 as outlined above, Matthias is silent about wherein, during activation, the information is communicated through a visual representation of two-dimensional code.
However, use a QR code to activate is well known in the art.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to use a two-dimensional code to activate, since it has been held to be within the general skill of a worker in the art to apply a known technique to a known device (method, or product) ready for improvement to yield predictable results is obvious. KSR International Co. v Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007).
Regarding claim 8, Matthias teaches all the features of claim 5 as outlined above, Matthias is silent about first deleting any prior information on the state of wear of a wiper strip.
However, it is well known in the art to erase any prior information before monitoring a new wiper strip.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to delete any prior information on the state of wear of a wiper strip, since it has been held to be within the general skill of a worker in the art to apply a known technique to a known device (method, or product) ready for improvement to yield predictable results is obvious. KSR International Co. v Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007).
Conclusion
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/XIN Y ZHONG/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2855