DETAILED ACTION
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in Korea on November 21, 2023. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the 10-2023-0162479 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55. In addition, as stated in the correspondent filed on 04/21/2025, an attempt by the Office to electronically retrieve, under the priority document exchange program, Failed. Applicant is still required to submit the certified copy to the Office.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Applicant specification does not provide any description of what is the “external device” that will send a response/signal to the driving module.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2-8, 10-16 and 18-20 is/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. However, the 112 (a) issue above must be resolved.
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 1, 9 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Beauregard US PG-Pub 2022/0141562
in view of Whit Ford “Polynomials and VEX drive motor control”.
Regarding claim 1, Beauregard teaches a driving module configured to pop up or down the pop-up speaker in response to control of an external device (Fig. 2-Fig. 3 & Fig. 6-Fig. 7 & [0058]-[0059]: a electrically-powered actuator-81 & motor-82 will be driving the changing on the loudspeaker-12 into the first and second position which would be up and down; [0064] & [0071]-[0070]: a main controller of an electrical system of the vehicle, which is an external device, to send command to ECU through CAN bus to drive the changing position of the loudspeaker); and a processor operatively connected to the driving module and the external device and configured to control the driving module in response to a control from the external device, wherein the processor is further configured to control the driving module to operate the pop-up speaker in the control of the external device (Fig. 7 & [0070]-[0071]: a processor/controller-94, is connected to the electrically-powered actuator-81 & motor-82 and also connected to the external device ([0064] main controller), through the ECU using CAN bus, to gather commands through button/switches to give commands to the processor/controller-94 to control the driving of the loudspeaker into different positions up/down).
Beauregard failed to explicitly teach driving motor nonlinearly.
However, Whit Ford teaches driving motor nonlinearly (Pg. 1: the title and graph shows using a polynomial equation to drive a motor, which will be nonlinearly).
Beauregard and Whit Ford are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely driving motors. Therefore, 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, because it is an alternate equivalent way to drive a motor and it helps to provide more precise control as Whit Ford states in pg. 3.
Regarding claim 9 and 17, Beauregard teaches a pop-up speaker (Fig. 1); an operating switch configured to output a signal for turning the pop-up speaker on or off ([0064] & [0070]-[0071]: main controller to gather commands through button/switches to give commands to a processor/controller-94 to control the driving of the loudspeaker into different positions up/down); and a pop-up speaker control apparatus including a processor and configured to control the pop-up speaker to operate the pop-up speaker, wherein the pop-up speaker control apparatus further includes a driving module operatively connected to the processor and configured to pop up or down the pop-up speaker in response to control of an external device (Fig. 7 & [0070]-[0071]: a processor/controller-94, is connected to the electrically-powered actuator-81 & motor-82 and also connected to the external device([0064] main controller), through the ECU using CAN bus, to gather commands through button/switches to give commands to the processor/controller-94 to control the driving of the loudspeaker into different positions up/down).
Beauregard failed to explicitly teach driving motor nonlinearly.
However, Whit Ford teaches driving motor nonlinearly (Pg. 1: the title and graph shows using a polynomial equation to drive a motor, which will be nonlinearly).
Beauregard and Whit Ford are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely driving motors. Therefore, 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, because it is an alternate equivalent way to drive a motor and it helps to provide more precise control as Whit Ford states in pg. 3.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM A JEREZ LORA whose telephone number is (571)270-5519. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am-9am and 11am-6pm.
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/WILLIAM A JEREZ LORA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2695