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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Applicant is advised that the new art unit number is 2692. Please use the new art unit number for all future communications.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 7/29/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim Objections
Claim 1, 9 objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1, second-to-last line: “configurated” should be --configured--.
Claim 9, second-to-last line: “circit” should be --circuit--.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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, 11, 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ando et al. (JP 2001-028798 using an English machine translation).
Regarding claim 1, Ando discloses an audio system (Fig. 1), comprising:
a notification appliance circuit (NAC) (¶ 0001: commercial broadcasting device or emergency broadcasting device) having one or more speakers (Fig. 1: 1) configured to reproduce sound (¶ 0002: performs the “output”);
an amplifier circuit (3) configured to drive the one or more speakers (¶ 0007 and see signal flow from 3 to 1 in Fig. 1);
a relay circuit (4) configured to selectively connect or disconnect the speakers to or from the amplifier circuit responsive to an enable amplifier control signal (ON) or a disable amplifier control signal (OFF), respectively (¶ 00035-0036);
a logic element (5) configured to generate the enable amplifier control signal or the disable amplifier control signal responsive to an absence or a presence of an overcurrent condition in an output of the amplifier circuit, respectively (¶ 0042, 0034-0038); and
an overcurrent detection circuit (Fig. 3: 35) configurated to detect the absence or the presence of the overcurrent condition (¶ 0032).
Claims 11, 17 recite similar limitations as claims 1, 1, respectively, and are rejected for the same reasons set forth above in the rejections of claims 1, 1, respectively.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ando in view of Nakajima (JP 2014216704 using an English machine translation).
Regarding claim 10, Ando discloses the audio system in accordance with claim 1.
Ando is not relied upon to disclose wherein the logic element comprises a NAC select input configured to select a given NAC to be connected or disconnected from the amplifier circuit via automatic relay control.
In a similar field of endeavor, Nakajima discloses wherein the logic element (27) comprises a NAC select input configured to select a given NAC (23 and 28) to be connected or disconnected from the amplifier circuit (25) via automatic relay control (24) (Fig. 3).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to: wherein the logic element comprises a NAC select input configured to select a given NAC to be connected or disconnected from the amplifier circuit via automatic relay control, the motivation being to detect short circuit and failure without notice that detection of abnormality is performed before actual use (Nakajima - ¶ 0008).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-9, 12-16, 18-21 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
In regard to claim 2, the prior art of record alone or in combination fails to teach or suggest the following limitations of the claim in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim:
“further comprising:
a current sensor configured to receive a first alternating current (AC) signal output from the amplifier circuit and generate a second AC signal that simulates the first AC signal;
a rectifier configured to convert the second AC signal into a direct current (DC) signal;
an amplifier configured to amplify the DC signal into an amplified DC signal; and
a comparator configured to generate a MUTE signal to mute the amplifier circuit responsive to the amplified DC signal during at least a portion of the overcurrent condition to prevent arcing of contacts of the relay circuit.”
In regard to claim 9, the prior art of record alone or in combination fails to teach or suggest the following limitations of the claim in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim:
“further comprising a short-circuit supervision circuit, operatively connected between an output of the logic element and an input and the output of the amplifier circuit, configured to provide a short circuit detection signal to the logic element responsive to a detection of a short circuit condition between the input and the output of the amplifier circuit.”
In regard to claim 12, the prior art of record alone or in combination fails to teach or suggest the following limitations of the claim in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim:
“further comprising:
configuring a current sensor to receive a first alternating current (AC) signal output from the amplifier circuit and generate a second AC signal that simulates the first AC signal;
configuring a rectifier to convert the second AC signal into a direct current (DC) signal;
configuring an amplifier to amplify the DC signal into an amplified DC signal; and
configuring a comparator to generate a MUTE signal to mute the amplifier circuit responsive to the amplified DC signal during at least a portion of the overcurrent condition to prevent arcing of contacts of the relay circuit.”
In regard to claim 18, the prior art of record alone or in combination fails to teach or suggest the following limitations of the claim in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim:
“further comprising:
generating, by a current sensor, a second AC signal that simulates a first AC signal;
converting, by a rectifier, the second AC signal into a direct current (DC) signal;
amplifying, by an amplifier, the DC signal into an amplified DC signal; and
generating, by a comparator, a MUTE signal to mute the amplifier circuit responsive to the amplified DC signal during at least a portion of the overcurrent condition to prevent arcing of contacts of the relay circuit.”
Claims 3-8, 13-16, 19-21 is/are dependent upon base claims having allowable subject matter.
Relevant Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Lee (KR 10-2010-0005867) teaches an amplifier (100), relay (400), speaker (500), logic (600), and overcurrent detection (300) (Figs. 2 and 3).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARK FISCHER whose telephone number is (571)270-3549. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 1-6, 7:30-11:59pm EST.
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.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, CAROLYN R EDWARDS can be reached on 571-270-7136. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/MARK FISCHER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2692
/CAROLYN R EDWARDS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2692