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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 07/08/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
In line 3 of the claim, “generatinga value” should be corrected to read as – generating a value --.
In line 8 of the claim, “applyinga value” should be corrected to read as – applying a value --.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claim 5 sets forth “[A] computer program stored on a recording medium…” However, the specification as originally filed discloses in paragraph [00109]:
“The software and/or data may be permanently or temporarily embedded in any type of machine, component, physical device, virtual equipment, computer storage medium or device, or signal wave to be transmitted, so as to be interpreted by or to provide instructions or data to the processing device.” Thus, the Examiner interprets that the claimed recording medium encompasses both statutory subject matter and non-statutory subject matter (i.e., signal or carrier wave). See MPEP 2111.01. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se or transitory propagating signals, the claim must be rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter.
The Examiner respectfully submits a claim drawn to such a computer readable medium that covers both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 by adding the limitation “non-transitory” to the claim. Such an amendment would typically not raise the issue of new matter, even when the specification is silent because the broadest reasonable interpretation relies on the ordinary and customary meaning that includes signals per se. The limited situations in which such amendment could raise new issues of new matter occur, for example, when the specification does not support a non-transitory embodiment because a signal per se is the only viable embodiment such that the amended claim(s) is impermissibly broadened beyond the supporting disclosure. See, e.g., Gentry Gallery, Inc. vs. Berkline Corp., 134 F.3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1998). For additional information, please see the Patents’ Official Gazette notice published February 23, 2010 (1351 OG 212).
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.
Claims 1, 5 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Webb et al. (US 2014/0267778 A1, hereinafter “Webb”) in view of Maqueira (US 5,274,314).
Regarding claim 6, Webb discloses an apparatus for controlling a gimbal (140 in figs. 1-3) mounted on a camera, the apparatus comprising a control module configured to control the gimbal (see abstract and par. [0027]-[0029]), wherein the control module is further configured to:
perform a first operation of generating a value of a first target rotational force for a servo motor module (150) that transmits a rotational force to the gimbal, based on a value of a sensor (IMU 110 which includes a value from a gyroscope) output received from a gyro sensor module (gyroscope) mounted in alignment aligned with a direction in which the camera faces and a value of a preset angular velocity of a gimbal platform with which the gimbal is engaged (see figs. 1-3 and par. [0027]-[0036]); and
Webb is silent about performing a second operation of applying a value of a rotational resistance based on the value of the preset angular velocity of the gimbal platform to the first target rotational force to generate a value of a second target rotational force, and transmitting the value of the second target rotational force to the servo motor module. However, this feature is taught by Maqueira in fig. 2 and col. 6, line 47 to col. 7, line 16, wherein a value of rotational resistance (i.e., friction from gimbal bearings determined from coulomb friction level estimator 25) based on the value of the preset angular velocity of the gimbal is applied such that a second target rotational force is generated at the driver (15) after subtracting the value of rotational resistance (at subtractor 33), and is transmitted to the servo motor (19).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teaching of Webb and Maqueira to arrive at the Applicant’s claimed invention for an enhanced control of the gimbal using adaptive friction compensation utilized to improve the stabilization performance of conventional rate loops by canceling friction disturbances as they occur as taught by Maqueira in col. 3, lines 1-7.
Regarding claims 1 and 5, these claims are also met by the discussion in the apparatus claim 6 above. Furthermore, the combination of Webb and Maqueira also disclose a computer program stored on a recording medium for executing on a computer device the method according to claim 1 (see Webb, par. [0101]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4 and 7-9 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 2, the prior art references of record, either alone or in combination, fail to teach or suggest: “the generating of the first target rotational force comprises: receiving the value of the preset angular velocity of the gimbal platform having the gimbal engaged therewith, in a form of a preset data signal; and calculating the value of the first target rotational force, based on the value of the preset angular velocity, by using a linear model having an inverse function.”
Regarding claims 3 and 4, these claims are dependent from claim 2.
Regarding claim 7, the prior art references of record also fail to teach or suggest: “the control module is further configured to receive the value of the preset angular velocity of the gimbal platform having the gimbal engaged therewith, in a form of a preset data signal, and calculate the value of the first target rotational force based on the value of the preset angular velocity, by using a linear model having an inverse function.”
Regarding claims 8 and 9, these claims are dependent from claim 7.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NHAN T TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-7371. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 5:00pm.
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/NHAN T TRAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2638
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