DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-6 are pending.
Claims 7-11 are withdrawn from consideration.
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 .
Response to Arguments
Claims 7-11 withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention/butt welding machine, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made with traverse in the reply filed on 04/09/2026.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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 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.
Claim(s) 1-2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Savitski, Alexander, WO 02/059566 (hereinafter Savitski)
Regarding claim 1, it can be noted that this claim is directed towards a method for quality assessment. The only limitations/steps/recitations directed towards said quality assessment is “the resulting melt regions on the end faces of the plastic part ends are inspected by means of at least one camera”. The remaining recitations describing the butt weld and the process of welding are out of the scope of the claimed invention.
Savitski discloses “the resulting melt regions on the end faces of the plastic part ends are inspected by means of at least one camera” (Page 3 L1-19, Page 6 L3-16, Page 7 L25-34 , Page 8 L1-8). Savitski further discloses a butt weld of plastic parts, welded by a butt welding machine, comprising wherein two plastic parts are clamped in a coaxial position to one another by means of clamping devices and fixed, wherein the mutually opposite end faces of the plastic parts are planed flat by means of a plane which can be introduced in between, and the plastic part ends are melted by means of a heating mirror which can be introduced in between and then joined after melting (Page 3 L1-19, Page 6 L3-16, Page 7 L25-34 , Page 8 L1-8)
Regarding claim 2, Savitski - wherein the melt regions are inspected by camera before the two plastic part ends are joined together (Page 3 L1-19, Page 6 L3-16, Page 7 L25-34 , Page 8 L1-8)
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 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 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Savitski, Alexander, WO 02/059566 (hereinafter Savitski) in view of Iwai, US Patent No. 5,533,146 (hereinafter Iwai).
Regarding claim 3, Savitski discloses all the claimed limitations of the base claims, as outlined above.
Savitski fails to clearly specify wherein the end faces of the plastic parts are photographed by the camera at an oblique viewing angle.
However, Iwai teaches wherein the end faces of the plastic parts are photographed by the camera at an oblique viewing angle (C2 L42-67).
The applied prior art is considered analogous art to the claimed invention because they relate to same field of endeavor. They relate to weld inspection systems.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the above weld inspection system, as taught by Savitski, and incorporating the concept of oblique imaging, as taught by Iwai.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification in order to improve/increase inspection time, as suggested by Iwai (See C1 L38-40).
Claims 4-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Savitski, Alexander, WO 02/059566 (hereinafter Savitski) in view of Iwai, US Patent No. 5,533,146 (hereinafter Iwai) in view of Rusli, Demas, Youtube video, “How to STRAIGHTEN YOUR PHOTOS // Lightroom & Photoshop Tutorial – YouTube”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftM1zOwcGXE (hereinafter Rusli).
Regarding claims 4-6, the combination of Sativski and Iwai does not clearly specify:
- wherein the image taken by the camera is straightened for analysis; - wherein the image taken by the camera from an oblique viewing angle is converted into a frontal image; - wherein the straightened image, or the image converted into a frontal image is classed as of satisfactory or unsatisfactory quality by means of an image analysis system
However Rusli teaches: - wherein the image taken by the camera is straightened for analysis (See Rusli). - wherein the image taken by the camera from an oblique viewing angle is converted into a frontal image (See Rusli). - wherein the straightened image, or the image converted into a frontal image is used for image analysis (see Rusli).
Iwai further teaches: -classifying melt regions as satisfactory or unsatisfactory quality by means of an image analysis system (see Iwai - Fig 2).
The applied prior art is considered analogous art to the claimed invention because they relate to same field of endeavor. They relate to Image processing.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the above weld inspection scheme/techniques, as taught by the combination of Sativski and Iwai, and incorporating the concept of straightening images, as taught by Rusli.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification in order to provide a user friendly manner of manipulating images, as suggested by Rusli.
Citation of Pertinent Prior Art
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Ong, T. Y., Z. Samad, and M. M. Ratnam. "Solder joint inspection with multi-angle imaging and an artificial neural network." The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 38.5 (2008): 455-462.
Belaziz, Azzeddine, and Mazari Mohamed. "Experimental study of the weld bead zones of a high-density polyethylene pipe (HDPE)." Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention 18.3 (2018): 667-676.
Mueller, US Patent No. 2,933,428 – relates to plastic welding.
Bemelmann et al., US Patent No. 3,727,289 – relates to clamping thermoplastic pipes for welding.
Pecha, US Patent No. 3,936,345 – relates to welding flexible member.
Natrop et al., US Patent No. 6,488,793 – relates to heated tool welding.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CARLOS R ORTIZ RODRIGUEZ whose telephone number is (571)272-3766. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 10:00 am- 6:30 pm.
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/CARLOS R ORTIZ RODRIGUEZ/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2119
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