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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/08/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ui et al. (US 2012/0019698 A1) in view of Ohya et al. (US 2020/0296315 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Ui discloses an imaging device (Fig. 1) comprising:
a signal generation circuit (Fig. 11) that is configured to generate a first control signal (TX[2n+1], see par. [0072], [0248]-[0256]);
a first selection control circuit that is configured to generate a plurality of first selection signals (SEL[n], Fig. 11 and par. [0248]-[0258]); and
a plurality of pixel circuits (Fig. 1 & 2) each including a light-receiving element (PD 21), an accumulation section (floating diffusion FD), a first switch (transfer transistor 22), a first circuit (TX connected to the transfer switch 22), and the light-receiving element configured to generate electric charge corresponding to an amount of received light, the accumulation section configured to accumulate the electric charge generated by the light-receiving element, the first switch (22) configured to couple the light-receiving element to the accumulation section by being turned on, the first circuit configured to control an operation of the first switch on a basis of one of the plurality of first selection signals and the first control signal (see Fig. 2 & 11 and par. [0021]-[0023], [0248]-[0258], wherein the first circuit is configured to control the transfer transistor based on one of the selection signal and the first control signal at OG20 for pixel row 2n+1, and similar fashion is applied to other rows of pixels), and
Although Ui discloses a comparator circuit (251 in Fig. 18, par. [0340]-[0341]) configured to compare a pixel signal including a voltage in the accumulation section with a reference signal having a ramp waveform, Ui does not disclose that the comparator circuit is included in each pixel. However, such in-pixel comparator is well known in the art and is taught by Ohya for improving frame rate (see Fig. 4, comparator 102, par. [0040], [0004]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to reconfigure the imaging device in Ui to incorporate the comparator within each pixel in view of Ohya for improvement of frame rate.
Regarding claim 20, the subject matter of this claim is also met by the analysis in claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-19 are 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:
Regarding claim 2, the prior art references of record fail to teach or suggest, either alone or in combination, the limitations: “the signal generation circuit is configured to further generate a second control signal, each of the plurality of pixel circuits is supplied with a first signal that is one of the plurality of first selection signals, the first circuit is configured to control the operation of the first switch on a basis of the first signal and the first control signal, andeach of the plurality of pixel circuits includes a second switch that is configured to apply a predetermined voltage to the light-receiving element by being turned on, and a second circuit that is configured to control an operation of the second switch on a basis of the first signal and the second control signal.”
Claims 3-19 are either directly or indirectly dependent from claim 2.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NHAN T TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-7371. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 5:00pm.
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/NHAN T TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2638