DETAILED ACTION
A. This action is in response to the following communications: Amendment filed: 06/02/2026. This action is made Final.
B. Claims 1-5 remain pending.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
Claim(s) 1-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Morita, Yuuki et al. (US Pub. 2017/0277160 A1), herein referred to as “Morita” in view of Lu, Guang et al. (US Pub. 2016/0368110 A1), herein referred to as “Lu”.
As for claims 1 and 5, Morita teaches. A numerical controller and corresponding storage medium of claim 5 for controlling a machine tool having at least a first axis and a second axis (par. 5 a machine tool capable of performing a tapping process by a synchronized operation of a spindle axis and a feed axis) , comprising:
a synchronization control unit that controls synchronization between the first axis and the second axis (par. 8 reduce a synchronization error that may be caused between the spindle axis and the feed axis due to the change in acceleration);
a cutting start position acquisition unit that acquires a cutting start position of a tool of the machine tool (par. 37 The controller 10 is capable of controlling, in a tapping process using a machine tool, a rotational motion of the spindle axis 12 for cutting a pilot hole of a workpiece with a tool until a target thread depth (referred to as a cutting motion, in this application). Also, the controller 10 is capable of controlling, in a tapping process using a machine tool, a rotational motion of the spindle axis 12 for pulling out a tool from a workpiece after cutting a pilot hole of the workpiece until a target thread depth (referred to as a return motion, in this application). In the control of the cutting motion, the “starting position” corresponds to a “process start position” of the tapping process, and the “target position” corresponds to a “target thread depth” of the tapping process. In the control of the return motion, the “starting position” corresponds to a “target thread depth” of the tapping process, and the “target position” corresponds to a “return completion position” of the tapping process.);
a tool information storage unit that stores tool information that is about the tool of the machine tool (par. 49 The various elapsed conditions may be set by a system designer based on an experimental rule, and may be stored as one of control parameters in a memory (not shown) of the controller 10) ;
a monitoring start position correction unit that calculates a monitoring start position which is the cutting start position corrected based on a shape of the tool included in the tool information (par. 58 during a period when the spindle-axis control section 18 executes the processes from step S1 to step S9, the numerical control section 16 monitors the residual rotation amount Sr notified from the spindle-axis control section 18, and judges that the tapping process has reached the target thread depth when the residual rotation amount Sr becomes equal to or less than a first predetermined value (a very small value close to zero); and
a synchronization error monitoring unit start monitoring a synchronization error at the monitoring start position or its vicinity of the tool of the machine tool (par. 60 according to the controller 10, a change in the acceleration of the spindle axis 12 immediately after the velocity control is switched to the position control during the decelerated rotation of the spindle axis 12 is able to be suppressed, and therefore, it is possible to reduce a mechanical or structural shock that may be caused on the spindle axis 12 due to the change in acceleration, and to reduce a synchronization error that may be caused between the spindle axis 12 and the feed axis 14 due to the change in acceleration) .
Morita does not specifically teach that the synchronization control unit control the synchronization between the first and second axes based on the corrected cutting start potion and a threshold value of the synchronization error; however in the same field of endeavor Lu teaches a monitoring start position correction unit that calculates a monitoring start position which is the cutting start position corrected based on a shape of the tool, including a length between a tool tip and a portion where thread cutting begins, in the tool information; and a synchronization error monitoring unit start monitoring a synchronization error at the monitoring start position or its vicinity of the tool of the machine tool, wherein, the synchronization control unit controls the synchronization between the first axis and the second axis based on the corrected cutting start position and a threshold value of the synchronization error at the monitoring start position where the thread cutting begins (par. 22 Workpiece is the tangible material being affected by the tool tip tool tip is the portion(s) of the tool that physically contact the workpiece. Tooling region is any region of the workpiece that is ultimately processed by the tool (e.g., at the tool tip);
par. 23 Multi-axis machine tool includes one or more actuators to position the tool tip
to position the workpiece, to move the workpiece relative to the tool tip. The positioning of the tooling region one or within the workpiece can be changed upon imparting relative movement between the tool tip and the workpiece.
X-axis is the linear axes that has an actuator associated with for configuring positioning of the tooling region impart relative movement between tooling region and workpiece;
Y-axis is orthogonal to X-axis;
Z- axis is orthogonal to the X and Y axis
A axis rotary axes that define rotation about an axis parallel to the X axis
B axis define rotation about axis parallel to Y axis
C axis define rotation about axis parallel to Z axis
Par. 24. Linear actuators are Actuators arranged/configured to position tooling region relative to workpiece along linear axis (X, Y and Z axis);
Rotary actuators are actuators arranged/configured to position tooling region to impart relative movement between the tooling region
along a rotary axis (A B C axis).
Par. 27 The trajectory can define a sequence of tool tip and/or workpiece positions and/or movements (e.g., along one or more spatial axes), that describe how the tooling region is to be positioned, oriented, moved, etc., during processing of the workpiece by the multi-axis machine tool.
Par. 77 the term error is not disclosed but a delay is, which functions as a synchronization error in that a delay exists so a control system can compensate for a delay in order to control synchronization between tool tip and workspace as actuated upon with the multiple actuators. The control system 100 includes one or more delay buffers to compensate for any or transport delays caused by the generation of the low-frequency content X, Y and Z axis actuator commands. Upon outputting the actuator commands in a synchronized or otherwise coordinated manner, the actuators essentially react or respond in a similarly synchronized or otherwise coordinated manner to impart relative movement between the tool tip and the workpiece in manner that moves the tooling region along a path that matches or otherwise corresponds to the desired trajectory.
Par. 80 describes how the control system can self-correct based upon position and threshold information to fix synchronization error/delay.
The control system 100 can be used to continuously provide synchronized and coordinated operation of the relatively-low bandwidth actuators (e.g., having a relatively large range of motion) and relatively-high bandwidth actuators of the multi-axis machine tool (e.g., having a relatively small range of motion) to position or otherwise move a tooling region relative to the workpiece (e.g., in a manner that accurately and reliably corresponds to a desired trajectory). While the control system 100 can accurately position the tooling region relative to the workpiece (e.g., according to the desired trajectory), it is possible that the tooling angle ultimately manifested at any point during workpiece processing can deviate from a reference tooling angle (e.g., as specified, either explicitly or implicitly, by the trajectory). Generally, the deviation in tooling angle arises if a high-frequency content linear actuator command has frequency content exceeding the threshold frequency of a rotary actuator that is not part of a set of redundant rotary actuators. Such tooling angle deviations can, however, be pre-calculated (e.g., based on the characteristics of the actuators in the multi-axis machine tool, based on the desired trajectory, etc.) and compensated for (either completely or partially) during workpiece processing (e.g., by adjusting the speed with which the tooling region is moved relative to the workpiece, by adjusting the processing at one or more of processing stages 120 and 124).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Lu into Morita because Lu suggests in paragraph 3 that motion control is an important aspect in robotic systems (e.g., involving articulated robot configurations, Cartesian robot configurations, cylindrical robot configurations, polar robot configurations, delta robot configurations, or the like or combinations thereof), numerical control (NC) machines, computerized NC (CNC) machines, and the like (generically and collectively referred to herein as “machine tools,” which can be adapted to process a workpiece).
As for claim 2, Morita teaches. The numerical controller according to claim 1, comprising a tool determination unit that determines a tool to be used for cutting, wherein the tool information storage unit stores tool information about at least two tools, and the monitoring start position correction unit reads tool information determined by the tool determination unit from the tool information storage unit and calculate the monitoring start position (par. 58 During a period when the spindle-axis control section 18 executes the processes from step S1 to step S9, the numerical control section 16 monitors the residual rotation amount Sr notified from the spindle-axis control section 18, and judges that the tapping process has reached the target thread depth when the residual rotation amount Sr becomes equal to or less than a first predetermined value (a very small value close to zero).
As for claim 3, Morita teaches. The numerical controller according to claim 1, wherein the tool information includes an acquisition method for acquiring a cutting start position, and the cutting start position acquisition unit acquires the cutting start position according to the acquisition method (par. 58 FIGS. 5 and 6, during a period when the spindle-axis control section 18 controls the rotational (or cutting) motion of the spindle axis 12 from the process start position to the target thread depth, the feed-axis control section 22 (FIG. 1) executes a feedback control for the feed axis 14 so as to make the feed axis perform a feed motion while following the motion of the spindle axis 12, with use of the rotational position FBS of the spindle axis 12).
As for claim 4, Morita teaches. The numerical controller according to claim 1, wherein the first axis is a main axis and the second axis is a feed axis in an axis direction of the main axis, the synchronization control unit controls synchronization between a rotation of the main axis and a speed of the feed axis, the tool is a tap, and the monitoring start position correction unit calculates the monitoring start position which is the cutting start position corrected based on a length between a tip of the tap and a portion for forming a thread (par. 36-37 first and second axis and synchronization control between rotation of axis to reduce error by means of monitoring as a tool is tapped).
(Note :) It is noted that any citation to specific, pages, columns, lines, or figures in the prior art references and any interpretation of the references should not be considered to be limiting in any way. A reference is relevant for all it contains and may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill in the art. In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1332-33, 216 USPQ 1038, 1039 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006,1009, 158 USPQ 275, 277 (CCPA 1968)).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-5 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Inquires
Any inquiry concerning this communication should be directed to NICHOLAS AUGUSTINE at telephone number (571)270-1056.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
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/NICHOLAS AUGUSTINE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2178 August 31, 2026
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