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 .
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.
Claims 1-6, 8-10, 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0166925 to Nakagawa et al. (“Nakagawa”).
Regarding claim 1, Nakagawa teaches a sensor device comprising:
a plurality of pixels each configured to receive light and perform photoelectric conversion to generate an electrical signal (reference number 12, pixel array unit containing plurality of columns and rows of pixels 11, see Figures 3-4);
a plurality of processing units each configured to generate output signals based on the electrical signals generated by the pixels (reference number 63 receives the output from the light receiving unit 61 of the pixel and processes the output signals, further connected to the signal processing unit, see Figure 5); and
circuitry that connects the plurality of pixels and the plurality of processing units such that information on the electrical signal generated by at least one of the pixels is provided to at least two processing units, and such that at least one of said processing units is provided with information on electrical signals from at least two pixels (Figure 10 shows the connection circuitry 64 and two pixels 11A with photodiode 611 and 11B with another photodiode 611; each one pixel is connected to each of 63A and 63B processing units and each processing unit 63A or 63B is connected to both pixels 11A and 11B).
Regarding claim 2, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 1, wherein the pixels are configured to output a photovoltage as an electrical signal; and the processing units are configured to perform event detection based on the photovoltages generated by the pixels (the light receiving units 61 convert incident light to generate a photocurrent and supplies a voltage corresponding to the photocurrent to the event detection unit 63, see paragraph [0127]).
Regarding claim 3, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry connects the plurality of pixels and the plurality of processing units such that at least a part of the pixels each provides information on their electrical signals to N processing units, and each of at least a part of the processing units is provided with information on electrical signals from N pixels, where N is a natural number (Figure 10 shows the connection circuitry 64 and two pixels 11A with photodiode 611 and 11B with another photodiode 611; each one pixel is connected to each of 63A and 63B processing units and each processing unit 63A or 63B is connected to both pixels 11A and 11B, where N is 2 in this particular example).
Regarding claim 4, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 3, wherein the N pixels are arranged in a regular pattern, or the N pixels are freely distributed among the plurality of pixels (see pattern of the pixel array in Figure 16).
Regarding claim 5, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry connects the plurality of pixels and the plurality of processing units such that the processing units are provided with information on electrical signals from pixels that are arranged in predetermined patterns (see Figure 16 showing arrangement of pixels).
Regarding claim 6, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is configured to dynamically change connections between the plurality of pixels and the plurality of processing units (see Figure 20, depending on events, a binning mode or resolution mode is activated).
Regarding claim 8, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry comprises a signal summation block that is configured to sum the at least two electrical signals provided to the one processing unit and to provide the summation result to said processing unit (see Figures 14-15, paragraphs [0221]-[0222]).
Regarding claim 9, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 8, wherein in the signal summation block electrical signals are weighted (see paragraphs [0184]-[0185], the calculation unit 642 performs a calculation depending on the operation mode).
Regarding claim 10, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 1, further comprising a plurality of event detection units each configured to receive the electrical signal of one pixel, to perform event detection based on said electrical signals, and to provide the result of event detection as electrical signal to the processing units; wherein said at least one processing unit is a digital circuit that is configured to decide on outputting an event notification based on the results of event detection provided to it (Figure 10, event data is supplied to the calculation unit, reference number 642, from the quantization unit 634 in the event detection unit 63A of pixel 11A and event data is supplied to the calculation unit 642 from the event detection unit 63B of pixel 11B).
Regarding claim 12, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 1, wherein the sensor device is a semiconductor device comprising at least two semiconductor substrates; the plurality of pixels is formed on a first semiconductor substrate; and the plurality of processing units is formed on a second semiconductor substrate that differs from the first semiconductor substrate (see Figure 9 showing substrate 101 and 102).
Claim 13 is rejected similarly to claim 1.
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 7, 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakagawa as applied to claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 7, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 6, but is silent on wherein the dynamic change is based on an artificial intelligence model. One of ordinary skill in the art recognizes that artificial intelligence models can be applied to processing including dynamically changing connections for the processing units based on the necessary mode. It 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 to modify the teaching of Nakagawa to use an artificial intelligence model to dynamically change connections between the pixels and processing units to utilize past and predictive data to more accurately adjust to the correct resolution or binning mode.
Regarding claim 11, Nakagawa teaches the sensor device according to claim 1, but is silent on wherein the circuitry comprises a delay unit that delays information on one of said at least two electrical signals to said at least one processing unit by a predetermined time. One of ordinary skill in the art understands that a delay unit may be obvious when two units share one processing unit by staggering output with respect to time. It 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 to modify the teaching of Nakagawa to use a delay unit that delays information on one of the two electrical signals to the processing unit so that two pixels units may output information to one processing unit.
Conclusion
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AMY R. HSU
Examiner
Art Unit 2664
/AMY R HSU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2638