DETAILED ACTION
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. The specification, the abstract and the drawings are all acceptable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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 of this title, 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.
4. Claims 1-3, 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USPN 10,411,621 to Hara, and in view of USPN 9,654,032 to Barrass.
As to claim 1, Hara teaches a motor control device (fig. 6: “6”) comprising: a first position acquiring unit (fig. 6: “2”) which acquires a positional change of each motor, based on respective detection signals of a plurality of first position detectors respectively provided to each of the plurality of motors(fig. 2: “first comparison block”, “second comparison block”, “third comparison block”, col. 3: lines 39-65 & col. 6: lines 20-21); a second position acquiring unit (fig. 6: “7”) which acquires positional change of the one axis based on a detection signal of a second position detector which directly detects positional change of the one axis(fig. 2: “first comparison block”, “second comparison block”, “third comparison block”, col. 3: lines 39-65 & col. 6: lines 3-4); a position calculation unit which calculates positional change in the one axis, based on positional change of respective motors acquired by the first position acquiring unit(fig. 2: “first comparison block”, “second comparison block”, “third comparison block”, col. 3: lines 39-65 wherein the position calculation unit calculates positional changes among Ɵ1, Ɵ2 and Ɵ3); and an abnormality detection unit which detects abnormality in the industrial machine, based on positional change in the one axis calculated by the position calculation unit, and positional change in the one axis acquired by the second position acquiring unit(col. 4: lines 58-64 wherein apparatus and method are taught to detect abnormality by calculating/comparing the position changes among positions Ɵ1, Ɵ2 and Ɵ3).
Hara does not teach a motor control device for controlling one axis by a plurality of motors in an industrial machine.
Barrass teaches a motor control device(fig. 3: “20”, “20’ ”) for controlling one axis (fig. 3: “10”) by a plurality of motors (fig. 3: “2”, “2’ ”) in an industrial machine.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Barrass into Hara since Hara suggests a motor control system and Barrass suggests the beneficial use of a motor control device for controlling one axis by a plurality of motors in the analogous art of motor control technology.
The motivation for this comes from the fact that Barrass teaches a motor control device for controlling one axis by a plurality of motors which can be used to improve the motor control system disclosed by Hara.
As to claim 2, Hara in view of Barrass teaches the motor control device according to claim 1, further comprising: a difference calculation unit which calculates a difference between the positional change in the one axis calculated by the position calculation unit and the positional change in the one axis acquired by the second acquiring unit(Hara fig. 2: “first comparison block”, “second comparison block”, “third comparison block”), wherein the abnormality detection unit detects abnormality in the industrial machine, in a case of the difference calculated by the difference calculation unit being outside a predetermined range, or an absolute value for the difference exceeding a predetermined threshold(Hara col. 6: lines 22-31).
As to claim 3, Hara in view of Barrass teaches the motor control device according to claim 1, wherein the abnormality detection unit produces an alarm when detecting abnormality in the industrial machine(Hara col. 6: lines 22-31 wherein it is obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to generating an alarm based on the abnormality result).
As to claim 5, Hara in view of Barrass teaches the motor control device wherein apparatus and method are taught for controlling and calculating the relative position changes for a plurality of motors for a motor control system(Hara fig. 2: “first comparison block”, “second comparison block”, “third comparison block”, col. 3: lines 39-65 wherein the position calculation unit calculates positional changes among Ɵ1, Ɵ2 and Ɵ3 and Barrass fig. 3, col. 17: lines 59 – col. 18: lines 7).
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claim 4 is objected to as being dependent upon the rejected base claim 1, but could be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claims and any intervening claims for the following reasons: No prior art of record discloses the features as claimed in the noted claims.
6. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter. The non-obvious features are:
In comparison with the closest prior art as cited in this Office action and any previous Office actions, no prior art of record discloses the following features as claimed in the following claim limitations:
As per claim 4: A plurality of gears which transfer rotational driving force of the plurality of motors; and a feed screw which converts rotational driving force transferred via the plurality of gears into linear driving force of the one axial direction, wherein the position calculation unit calculates positional change of the one axis, based on a gear ratio of the plurality of gears and a lead of the feed screw.
Conclusion
7. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
USPN 6,337,554 to Voillat discloses a motor control system.
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID S LUO whose telephone number is (571)270-5251. The examiner can normally be reached 8AM-5PM.
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/DAVID LUO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2846