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 module, a viscoelasticity test module, a force application module, and a data monitoring module in claim 1.
an interaction module in claim 9.
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.
The storage module is interpreted as a random-access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a mass memory, a removable memory, a volatile read/write memory, or equivalents per applicants’ specification Par. 70;
The viscoelasticity test module is interpreted as a single pendulum, a spring oscillator, or equivalents per applicants’ specification Par. 33;
The force application module is interpreted as a robotic arm, an exciter, or equivalents per applicants’ specification Par. 50;
The data monitoring module is interpreted as an accelerometer 123-1, a fiber optic displacement sensor, a laser tracker, or equivalents per applicants’ specification Par. 52;
The interaction module is interpreted input as components and output components, such as a button, a touch senso, a control level, a keypad, a microphone, a display, or equivalents per applicants’ specification as Par. 60;
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 § 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.
Claim 6-8 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 6 recites “perform a damping test” however, claim 1 already recites “perform a damping test”, it is unclear if these elements are the same or different tests. For the purposes of examining, they are considered to be the same.
Claims 7-8 are rejected based on their inherited deficiencies.
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.
Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Under step 1, claim 1 belongs to a statutory category.
Under Step 2A prong 1, the claims as a whole are identified as being directed to a judicial exception as claim 1 recite(s) “generate a test scheme and execute a test corresponding to the test scheme, the test including an initial test and/or an extended test; obtain a labeled test scheme, the labeled test scheme indicating that the test corresponding to the test scheme is executed; determine, based on the labeled test scheme, test data of the labeled test scheme, the test data including at least a logarithmic attenuation value of the labeled test scheme; determine, based on the test data, whether the extended test is added; in response to determining that the extended test is added, adjust, based on the test data test data obtained from the storage module, a sampling frequency of the data monitoring module, determine a test parameter of a newly added extended test,”, and “the test parameter of the newly added extended test including at least one of a material parameter of a model hardware and a disturbance parameter of the force application module, and the material parameter of the model hardware including at least one of an elastic coefficient of a spring and a damping coefficient of a damper; and generate, based on the test parameter of the newly added extended test and an adjusted sampling frequency, a new test scheme, the new test scheme being configured to perform a damping test on the wood-based material” which are directed to mathematical concepts and/or mental processes based on applicants specification, for example see Par. 101-108, 179-185, 275-282 and 286-292.
Under Step 2A prong 2, evaluating whether the claim as a whole integrates the exception into a practical application of that exception, the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because “a damping test system for a wood-based material based on full sampling of a free vibration curve, comprising: a damping test device, a carrying space,”, “wherein the damping test device is located in the carrying space, and the damping test device includes a viscoelasticity test module, a force application module,”, and “the viscoelasticity test module includes at least a single degree of freedom system formed based on a predetermined model, the wood-based material is arranged on the pre-determined model” are considered to be generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. The elements of “a processor, and a storage module,”, “and a data monitoring module;”, and “and the processor is integrated in a processing terminal, and the processor is configured to:” are considered to be data gathering steps required to use the correlation do not add a meaningful limitation to the method as they are insignificant extra-solution activity. The elements of “and send the sampling frequency and the test parameter to the storage module for storage,” are considered to be data gathering steps required to use the correlation do not add a meaningful limitation to the method as they are insignificant extra-solution activity.
Under Step 2B, evaluating additional elements to determine whether they amount to an inventive concept both individually and in combination, the claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because “a damping test system for a wood-based material based on full sampling of a free vibration curve, comprising: a damping test device, a carrying space,”, “wherein the damping test device is located in the carrying space, and the damping test device includes a viscoelasticity test module, a force application module,”, and “the viscoelasticity test module includes at least a single degree of freedom system formed based on a predetermined model, the wood-based material is arranged on the pre-determined model” are considered to be merely indicating a field of use or technological environment in which to apply a judicial exception do not amount to significantly more than the exception itself per MPEP 2106.05(h) and are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities/elements previously known to the industry per MPEP 2106.05(d) (see prior art of record). The elements of “a processor, and a storage module,”, “and a data monitoring module;”, and “and the processor is integrated in a processing terminal, and the processor is configured to:” are well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions as recognized by the court decisions listed in MPEP § 2106.05(d). The elements of “and send the sampling frequency and the test parameter to the storage module for storage,” are considered to be adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception per MPEP 2106.05(g) (ii) and are well-understood, routine, conventional activities/elements previously known to the industry per MPEP 2106.05(d)(i and see prior art of record).
Claims 2, 4-5, 7, are not integrated into a practical application and does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they are considered to be generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use and are considered to be merely indicating a field of use or technological environment in which to apply a judicial exception do not amount to significantly more than the exception itself per MPEP 2106.05(h) and are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities/elements previously known to the industry per MPEP 2106.05(d) (see prior art of record).
In claim 3, 8, the elements are not integrated into a practical application and does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they are considered to be data gathering steps required to use the correlation do not add a meaningful limitation to the method as they are insignificant extra-solution activity and are considered to be adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception per MPEP 2106.05(g) (ii) and are well-understood, routine, conventional activities/elements previously known to the industry per MPEP 2106.05(d)( i and see prior art of record).
In claim 6, “generate a control instruction based on the test scheme, the control instruction being configured to control the damping test device to perform a damping test, and the control instruction including the test parameter;”, “generate, based on the monitoring data, a predetermined vibration curve”, and “determine, based on the predetermined vibration curve, data to be analyzed; and determine, based on the data to be analyzed, the logarithmic attenuation value” further describe the abstract ideas cited above. The additional elements are not integrated into a practical application and does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because “obtain monitoring data of the wood-based material through the data monitoring module during a process of the damping test;” “and send the predetermined vibration curve to the storage module for storage”, “the predetermined vibration curve being obtained by sampling a free vibration of the wood-based material by the data monitoring module, and the free vibration being generated by applying an initial disturbance in a specified direction to the wood-based material by the force application module;” “send the logarithmic attenuation value to the storage module for storage, and label the test scheme” are considered to be data gathering steps required to use the correlation do not add a meaningful limitation to the method as they are insignificant extra-solution activity and are considered to be adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception per MPEP 2106.05(g) (ii) and are well-understood, routine, conventional activities/elements previously known to the industry per MPEP 2106.05(d)( i and see prior art of record).
In claim 9, “the test parameter of the newly added extended test further includes the environmental control parameter; and the processor is further configured to: for at least one test of at least one labeled test scheme, determine, based on a labeled vibration curve, a labeled logarithmic attenuation value, a labeled damping ratio, a labeled material parameter, a labeled disturbance parameter, and a labeled sampling frequency obtained from the storage module, and a wood-based material feature, the test parameter of the newly added extended test;” further describe the abstract ideas cited above. The additional elements are not integrated into a practical application and does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because “an interaction module and an environmental control device, wherein the environmental control device is located in the carrying space, and the interaction module is integrated in the processing terminal;” and “the environmental control device is configured to control, based on an environmental control parameter, an environment within the carrying space;” are considered to be generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use and are considered to be merely indicating a field of use or technological environment in which to apply a judicial exception do not amount to significantly more than the exception itself per MPEP 2106.05(h) and are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities/elements previously known to the industry per MPEP 2106.05(d) (see prior art of record). The elements of “the interaction module is configured to push prompting information to a user and obtain an operation feedback from the user” and “send the test parameter of the newly added extended test to at least one of the interaction module, the force application module, and the environmental control device” are considered to be data gathering steps required to use the correlation do not add a meaningful limitation to the method as they are insignificant extra-solution activity and are considered to be adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception per MPEP 2106.05(g) (ii) and are well-understood, routine, conventional activities/elements previously known to the industry per MPEP 2106.05(d)(i and see prior art of record).
Claims 10-12 and 14 further describe the abstract ideas cited above.
In claim 13, “jointly train, based on the plurality of sets of the training samples, the feature extraction layer and the determination layer to obtain the analysis data determination model; wherein the jointly training includes: for the each training sample, inputting the sample material parameter of the sample target test scheme, the sample disturbance parameter, the sample sampling frequency, and the sample environmental control parameter of the training sample into an initial feature extraction layer to obtain a test feature output from the initial feature extraction layer, inputting an output of the initial feature extraction layer and the sample labeled vibration curve into an initial determination layer to obtain the data to be analyzed of the target test scheme at the target number of test; constructing, based on the output of the initial determination layer and the predetermined data to be analyzed, a loss function, and simultaneously updating a parameter of the initial feature extraction layer and a parameter of the initial determination layer until a predetermined iteration condition is satisfied to obtain a trained feature extraction layer and a trained determination layer” further describe the abstract ideas cited above. The additional elements are not integrated into a practical application and does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because “obtain a plurality of sets of training samples, wherein for each training sample, the training sample includes training data and a corresponding label, the training data includes a sample labeled vibration curve of a sample target test scheme, a sample material parameter, a sample disturbance parameter, a sample sampling frequency, and a sample environmental control parameter, and the label characterizes predetermined data to be analyzed obtained by a predetermined processing of the sample vibration curve of the sample target test scheme at the target number of test” are considered to be data gathering steps required to use the correlation do not add a meaningful limitation to the method as they are insignificant extra-solution activity and are considered to be adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception per MPEP 2106.05(g) (ii) and are well-understood, routine, conventional activities/elements previously known to the industry per MPEP 2106.05(d)(i and see prior art of record).
Examiner Note with regards to Prior Art of Record
Claims 1-14 are distinguished over the prior art of record based on the reasons below.
In claim 1, the claim differs from the closest prior arts of record, WO 2021078603 A1, US 12284477 B2, US 20060027021 A1, in that it fails to anticipate or render obvious “determine, based on the labeled test scheme, test data of the labeled test scheme, the test data including at least a logarithmic attenuation value of the labeled test scheme; determine, based on the test data, whether the extended test is added;” and “determine a test parameter of a newly added extended test, and send the sampling frequency and the test parameter to the storage module for storage, the test parameter of the newly added extended test including at least one of a material parameter of a model hardware and a disturbance parameter of the force application module, and the material parameter of the model hardware including at least one of an elastic coefficient of a spring and a damping coefficient of a damper;” in combination with all the other limitations in the claim as claimed and defined by the applicant.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 5633711 A, Measurement Of Material Properties With Optically Induced Phonons; US 5150617 A, Magnetostrictive Resonance Excitation.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRANDON J BECKER whose telephone number is (571)431-0689. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-5:30.
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/B.J.B/ Examiner, Art Unit 2857
/SHELBY A TURNER/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2857
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