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 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Election/Restrictions
Claims 15, 16 and 19-23 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected method, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 16 July 2026.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: The quotation marks surrounding the title of the invention should be removed for clarity.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 1-4, 6-11, 13 and 14 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.
Regarding claim 1, the claim recites the limitation of a “pressure sensing mat including:” followed by a series of elements. It is unclear if each of the elements are part of the pressure sensing mat, or only the piezoresistive material which immediately follows.
Regarding claim 3, the claim recites the limitation of “the taxel measurement value” which lacks antecedent basis. Since a taxel value was measured in claim 2, it is unclear if the claim should depend from claim 1 as written, or from claim 2.
It is unclear as to how the taxel measurement value being serialized would allow for an at least 19 lead connection to the interface board since the measurement value would not affect the physical connections.
All claims which depend from those above are rejected for the same reasons due to their dependency thereon.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 8-11, 13 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Thompson WO 2020/051639.
Regarding claim 1, Thompson discloses a pressure sensing sheet system comprising
a pressure sensing mat 502, including:
a piezoresistive material (paragraph 0034);
an at least one conductor array row 106 and an at least one conductor array column 108, wherein the piezoresistive material is sandwiched between the at least one conductor array row and the at least one conductor array column (see fig. 7), wherein each intersection of the conductor array row and the conductor array column defines a taxel (paragraph 0004);
at least one sheet-edge row segment (row buffer 118) coupled to the at least one conductor array row;
at least one sheet-edge column segment (buffer 114) coupled to the at least one conductor array column;
a sheet interface board connected to the at least one sheet-edge row segment and the at least one sheet-edge column segment, and configured to act as a fan-out (buffers and demultiplexers act as in interface and allow for multiple connections to be made 116, 118, 124);
and a databox (controller 122) connected to the sheet interface board of the pressure sensing mat via signal wires and configured to measure each taxel of the pressure sensing mat (the controller receives and controls the connection of the voltage buffers which would measure the taxels under pressure and the voltage generated therefrom).
Regarding claim 2, Thompson teaches the databox as measuring each taxel by iterating across all conductor array rows and conductor array columns creating a circuit across each individual taxel as seen for example in fig. 4 and described in paragraph 0071.
Regarding claim 3, the interface board of Thompson allows for an at least 10 lead connection as seen in fig. 12.
Regarding claim 8, Thompson would be capable of dynamically determining the size of the conductor array by reading each of the taxels to determine if there is an output generated therefrom.
Regarding claim 9, the system of Thompson teaches a fault check by determining if each row has been addressed (paragraph 0080).
Regarding claim 10, when pressure is applied to multiple taxels of Thompson, they would be measured at once and thereby increase bandwidth.
Regarding claim 11, Thompson teaches measuring the resistance at each taxel of the conductor array (paragraph 0062).
Regarding claims 13 and 14, Thompson teaches a display 520 as claimed which would display the output from the databox comprising information representative of the pressure sensing sheet system.
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(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thompson.
Regarding claim 4, the system of Thompson is capable of driving between three and eight conductor array rows and columns but does not explicitly disclose the values as minimum and maximum amounts. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to have used any desired number of array rows and array columns depending on the size of the sheet to be manufactured and monitored, since it has been held that choosing from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, with a reasonable expectation of success is obvious. KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007)
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thompson as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Yoon et al. US 2006/0254639.
Regarding claim 6, Thompson teaches the claimed invention but does not explicitly teach the sheet-edge row and sheet-column row which are designed to chain unidirectionally with respective segments of additional sheets as claimed. Yoon discloses a modular system of flexible sheets comprising row and column connecting lines which allow for connection to adjacent sensing elements as seen in fig. 2. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have combined the teachings of Yoon with those of Thompson in order to provide a similar modular system allowing for sensing in a larger area by connecting smaller sensors in groups as taught by Yoon (paragraph 0006).
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thompson as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Sarrafzadeh us 2012/0323501.
Regarding claim 7, Thompson teaches the claimed invention but does not explicitly disclose the databox configured to communicate with an external server to transmit measurements for processing. Sarrafzadeh teaches a pressure sensing sheet which wireless communication to a remote server (paragraph 0006).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Mark A. Shabman whose telephone number is (571)272-8589. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-4:30 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Laura Martin can be reached at 571-272-2160. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MARK A SHABMAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2855
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