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 Objections
Claims 1, 6–10, 12, 14–16, 20, and 22 are objected to because of the following informalities: Each of these claims includes two periods (see MPEP § 608.01(m), “Each claim begins with a capital letter and ends with a period. Periods may not be used elsewhere in the claims except for abbreviations.”) Appropriate correction is required. For example, in each of these claims, the period immediately preceding the end parentheses may be deleted, leaving only the final period in the claim.
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 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 4, and 6–11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CN 209690597 U (cited in Applicant’s May 10, 2024, IDS, where Applicant provided a copy of the reference, not in English, and a machine translation is attached with this Office action, “Dai”) in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0180856 to Jung et al.
Regarding Claim 1, Dai discloses (e.g., at least Embodiment 5, Fig. 9, Tables 9 and 25, and their corresponding descriptions) an optical system comprising: first to eighth lenses E1–E8 disposed along an optical axis in a direction from an object side to a sensor side (Fig. 9), wherein the first lens has positive refractive power on the optical axis (paragraph [0142]), wherein the third lens has negative refractive power on the optical axis (paragraph [0142]), wherein the eighth lens has negative refractive power on the optical axis (paragraph [0142]), wherein an object-side surface of the first lens has a convex shape on the optical axis (paragraph [0142]), wherein a sensor-side surface of the third lens has a smallest effective diameter among the first to eighth lenses (e.g., Fig. 9), wherein a sensor-side surface of the eighth lens has a largest effective diameter among the first to eighth lenses (e.g., Fig. 9), and wherein the following equation satisfies:
0.4<TTL/ImgH<2.5 (Table 25, Embodiment 5, 1.17, within the claimed range)
(TTL (Total track length) is a distance in the optical axis from an apex of the object-side surface of the first lens to an image surface of a sensor, and ImgH is 1/2 of a maximum diagonal length of the sensor).
Dai teaches that both the image and object sides of eighth lens E8 are concave (e.g., paragraph [0142]), but does not explicitly disclose wherein the sensor-side surface of the eighth lens is provided without a critical point from the optical axis to an end of an effective region, wherein a distance from a center of the sensor-side surface of the eighth lens to a first point where a slope of a straight line passing through the sensor-side surface has an inclination angle of less than 1% in absolute value is 20% or more of an effective radius.
Jung discloses a lens system with 8 lenses, similar to Dai, and Jung teaches the sensor-side surface of the eighth lens is provided without a critical point from the optical axis to an end of an effective region (e.g., Figs. 1 and 3 and their description) as a suitable configuration.
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to modify the device of Dai such that the sensor-side surface of the eighth lens is provided without a critical point from the optical axis to an end of an effective region, as suggested by Jung as a suitable configuration for the surfaces of the eighth lens; and further it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to modify the device of Dai such that a distance from a center of the sensor-side surface of the eighth lens to a first point where a slope of a straight line passing through the sensor-side surface has an inclination angle of less than 1% in absolute value is 20% or more of an effective radius, as a matter of design choice, yielding predictable results, absent evidence of criticality or otherwise unobvious results from the claim features.
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Dai and Jung would have rendered obvious wherein an object-side surface of the eighth lens is provided without a critical point from the optical axis to an end of an effective region, and wherein a distance from the center of the sensor-side surface of the eighth lens to the first point is in a range of 20% to 40% of the effective radius (e.g., Fig. 1 of Jung, illustrating the general shape of the lens, from which it would have been obvious as a matter of design choice to select appropriate parameters, absent evidence of criticality or otherwise unobvious results from the claim features).
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Dai and Jung would have rendered obvious wherein the first lens satisfies the following equation:
1<L1_CT/L1_ET<5 (e.g., Fig. 9 and Table 9 of Dai, also where selecting relative thicknesses and size of the effective region would have been obvious a matter of design choice to select appropriate parameters, absent evidence of criticality or otherwise unobvious results from the claim features)
(L1_CT is a thickness of the first lens in the optical axis, and L1_ET is a thickness between ends of effective regions of an object-side surface and the sensor-side surface of the first lens).
Regarding Claim 7, the combination of Dai and Jung would have rendered obvious wherein the first and eighth lenses satisfy the following equations:
1.5<n1<1.6 (Table 9 of Dai, 1.547)
1.5<n8<1.6 (Table 9 of Dai, 1.537)
(n1 is a refractive index of the first lens, and n8 is a refractive index of the eighth lens).
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of Dai and Jung would have rendered obvious wherein the third lens and the eighth lens satisfy the following equation:
2≤CA_L8S1/AVR_CA_L3≤4 (e.g., Fig. 9 and Table 9 of Dai; also where selecting relative thicknesses and size of the effective regions would have been obvious a matter of design choice to select appropriate parameters, absent evidence of criticality or otherwise unobvious results from the claim features)
(CA_L8S1 is an effective diameter (mm) of an object-side surface of the eighth lens, and AVR_CA_L3 is an average value of an effective diameter of an object-side surface and the sensor-side surface of the third lens).
Regarding Claim 9, the combination of Dai and Jung would have rendered obvious wherein the third lens and the eighth lens satisfy the following equation:
2≤CA_L8S2/AVR_CA_L3<5 (e.g., Fig. 9 and Table 9 of Dai; also where selecting relative thicknesses and size of the effective regions would have been obvious a matter of design choice to select appropriate parameters, absent evidence of criticality or otherwise unobvious results from the claim features)
(CA_L8S2 is an effective diameter (mm) of the sensor-side surface of the eighth lens, and AVR_CA_L3 is an average value of effective diameters of an object-side surface and a sensor-side surface of the third lens).
Regarding Claim 10, the combination of Dai and Jung would have rendered obvious wherein thicknesses of the first and eighth lenses satisfies the following equation:
1<L1_CT/L8_CT<5 (from Table 9 of Dai, 0.8638/0.6412=1.3472, within the claimed range)
(L1_CT is the thickness of the first lens in the optical axis, and L8_CT is the thickness of the eighth lens in the optical axis).
Regarding Claim 11, the combination of Dai and Jung would have rendered obvious wherein a maximum Sag value of the sensor-side surface of the eighth lens is the center of the sensor-side surface (e.g., Fig. 10B of Dai).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 3 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.
Claims 12–18 and 20–22 are allowed (subject to any claim objections above).
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Regarding Claim 12, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0307006 to Kang et al. discloses (e.g., referencing the second embodiment, Fig. 3 and Table 3, and their descriptions) an optical system comprising: a first lens group FG having three or less lenses on an object side (Fig. 3); and a second lens group RG having five or less lenses on a sensor side of the first lens group (Fig. 3), wherein the first lens group has positive refractive power on an optical axis (e.g., see claim 7 of Kang, where EFL is a positive number, Table 3), wherein the second lens group has negative refractive power on the optical axis (e.g., see claim 11 of Kang, where EFL is a positive number, Table 3), wherein a number of lenses of the second lens group is less than twice the number of lenses of the first lens group (2 is less than 4), wherein a sensor-side surface closest to the second lens group among lens surfaces of the first lens group has a minimum effective diameter (e.g., Fig. 3), wherein a sensor-side surface closest to an image sensor among lens surfaces of the first and second lens groups has a maximum effective diameter (e.g., Fig. 3), wherein the sensor-side surface closest to the image sensor among the lens surfaces of the second lens group has a minimum distance between a center of the sensor-side surface and the image sensor, and the distance gradually increases toward an end of an effective region of the sensor-side surface (e.g., Fig. 3), and wherein the following equations satisfy:
0.4<TTL/ImgH<2.5 (calculated from values provided in Table 3)
0.5<TD/CA_max<1.5 (calculated from values provided in Table 3)
(TTL (Total track length) is a distance in the optical axis from an apex of an object-side surface of a first lens to an image surface of the image sensor, ImgH is 1/2 of a maximum diagonal length of the image sensor, TD is a maximum distance (mm) in the optical axis from the object-side surface of the first lens group to the sensor-side surface of the second lens group, and CA_Max is a largest effective diameter among effective diameters of object-side surfaces and sensor-side surfaces of first to eighth lenses).
Kang does not explicitly disclose wherein a number of lenses of the second lens group is greater than of a number of lenses of the first lens group (instead teaching same numbers of lenses in each group).
Dai (applied in the rejection of Claim 1 above) discloses a lens arrangement including three lenses E1–E3 in a first group having positive refractive power, and five lenses E4–E8 in a second group having negative refractive power (e.g., calculated from the values provided in Table 9 of Dai).
However, there does not appear to be any specific motivation or reason to expect specific success in modifying Kang to include additional lenses, or any expectation that such would result in a system still satisfying the further limitations of Claim 12. Claims 13–18 depend from Claim 12.
Claim 20 (and Claims 21–22 which depend therefrom) similarly do not appear anticipated by or rendered obvious in view of the cited references, though, as noted above, Dai, Jung, and Kang teach individual features of the claims, the combination of all features recited in Claim 20, taken all together in combination as a whole, does not appear in the cited references.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RYAN CROCKETT whose telephone number is (571)270-3183. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am to 5pm.
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/RYAN CROCKETT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2871