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 .
Claims 1 – 21 are pending.
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.
Regarding Claim 1, the claim is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim is directed to a method which falls within the statutory category of a process. The claim(s) recite(s) the limitation of “defining a skate distance to overdrive relation dataset according to a type of a probe of a probing assembly of the probe system and a type of a contact pad of the device under test”. The limitation of defining falls within the enumerated grouping of mental processes, which can be illustrated from the relevant portion of the spec regarding Figure 15. Also, it should be noted that the "defining” can be performed by the user observing the graph during the procedure, thus this step can be accomplished visually/mentally on the fly.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the claim recites “a controller”. Note that the controller is not responsible to achieve the “defining”. Instead, the defined “skate distance” is provided to a controller in the second step. The claim recites no more than mere instructions to implement an abstract idea or other exception on a computer. Thus, claims that amount to nothing more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer do not render an abstract idea eligible. Therefore, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more because the additional elements considered individually and in combination do not qualify significant more because they are mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer.
As such, claim 1 is ineligible under 35 USC 101.
Dependent Claims(s) 2 – 14, when analyzed as a whole are held to be ineligible subject matter and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the additional recited limitations(s) fail(s) to establish that the claim is not directed to an abstract idea because the additional limitations(s) are no more than a field of use or merely involve insignificant extra-solution activity as data gathering and calculation.
Particularly:
Regarding Claims 2 – 14, are considered routine data gathering that is necessary for the method.
The claims have been considered ineligible under 35 USC 101 by reviewing both the limitations themselves and as ordered combinations of elements which do not amount to a practical application of the abstract limitations.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 15 – 21 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Regarding Claim 15, the prior art of record does not teach claimed limitation: “obtaining, with an optical image-forming device, a present probe system image of at least a part of the probe system, the present probe system image comprising one or both of: an image of at least a part of the probe; and an image of at least a part of the substrate” in combination with all other claimed limitations of claim 15.
Regarding Claims 16 – 21, the claims are allowed as they further limit allowed claim 15.
Comments
The prior art of record found as a result of the search, does not teach alone or in combination all of the elements recited in claim 1. Therefore, no prior art rejection for claim 1 is presented in this action. However, Claims 1 – 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Panken et al. (US 2020/0338351 A1) suggests determining an error value based on the determined electrical signal levels and the expected electrical signal levels; repeatedly adjusting the hypothetical location, and repeatedly determining the error value for each of the adjusted hypothetical locations of the at least one oscillatory signal source until the determined error value is less than or equal to a threshold value (see claim 1).
Oren et al. (US 2020/0001048 A1) discloses a system for determining an error associated with an electrode disposed on a medical device, the system comprising: a processor; and a memory storing instructions on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, wherein the instructions are executable by the processor to: receive an electrode signal from the electrode disposed on the medical device; receive a plurality of other electrode signals from a plurality of other electrodes disposed on the medical device; and determine that the electrode signal received from the electrode disposed on the medical device is an outlier in relation to the plurality of other electrode signals from the plurality of other electrodes disposed on the medical device, based on a comparison between the electrode signal and the plurality of other electrode signals (see claim 1).
Hresko et al. (US 2017/0296056 A1) teaches the device is in an invalid operating mode, at least one of one or more response buttons are stuck and a response button signal error has occurred, at least one of one or more patient parameters is deemed corrupted, an update of the one or more patient parameters has failed, the at least one of the electrode assembly and the controller is deemed inoperative, and the device fails a pulse test (see claim 60).
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/GIOVANNI ASTACIO-OQUENDO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2858 3/7/2026
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