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 filed 8/30/2024 has been considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings filed 7/31/2024 are approved by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 14 recites, “…A display device for displaying a distance to the target body which is detected by the distance detector according to claim 1…”.
Therefore, it is not clear whether claim 14 recites a generic display with an intended use for displaying distance detected by the device according to claim 1 or the device of claim 1 further including a display.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 13-15 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Reynolds (United States Patent Application Publication No. 2019/0324144).
With respect to claim 1, Reynolds discloses: A distance detector [ taught by figure 2 ], comprising: a light projecting unit configured to project light toward a target body [ taught by laser sources (32, 42) ]; a light receiving unit configured to receive a reflected light from the target body [ taught by detectors (34, 44) ]; a time detection unit configured to detect a light receiving time from the projecting of the light by the light projecting unit to the receiving of the reflected light by the light receiving unit [ taught by controller (80); paragraph [0032] ]; a position receiving unit configured to receive position information of the distance detector [ taught by position module (60); paragraph [0029] ]; and a calculation unit [ taught by computer (130 and controller (80) ] configured to calculate a distance to the target body based on a detection result of the light receiving time by the time detection unit and a result of the receiving by the position receiving unit [ figure 5 shows a plurality of distances (b1, b2 to bn) being determined with respect to the source location (220) ].
Claims 15 and 18 are anticipated by the subject matter of Reynolds, as applied to claim 1.
Claims 13 and 14 are taught by display (53).
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 2 and 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Reynolds (United States Patent Application Publication No. 2019/0324144) in view of Lewis et al (United States Patent Application Publication No. 2017/0354858).
Claim 2 differs from Reynolds by further reciting an evaluation unit configured to evaluate a reliability of a calculation result of the distance to the target body by the calculation unit based on a deviation of a distance corresponding to the calculation result from a reference value regarding the distance to the target body.
Figure 4 of Lewis et al teaches it was known before the effective filing date of the present application to have used a processor (218) configured to evaluate the reliability of a distance calculation to a target based on a deviation of a distance corresponding to a reference value regarding distance to the target [ paragraph [0058] taught disregarding distance values that did not correspond to the geographic location of the range measuring system and target flag ].
Therefore, it would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to have had a reasonable expectation of success in modifying the device of Reynolds to have used the distance verification method of Lewis et al, when seeking to improve reliability of measurements.
Claims 10-12 are met by the combination of Reynolds and Lewis et al, as applied to claim2, because paragraph [0029] of Reynolds taught using GPS to determine the position of the body (20) and object (90).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-9, 16, 17, 19 and 20 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication should be directed to MARK HELLNER at telephone number (571)272-6981.
Examiner interviews are available via a variety of formats. See MPEP § 713.01. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
/MARK HELLNER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645
Prosecution Insights