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 § 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) 1-4, 12, 13, 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tezuka (U.S. PGPUB 2020/0376593) in view of Bryant et al. (U.S. PGPUB 2015/0104101).
Regarding claims 1, 3, 4, 12, 13, 15, Tezuka discloses (Figs.) a laser path display apparatus installed for a galvanometer scanner, the galvanometer scanner comprising mirrors (21, 22) and mirror drive devices (23, 24) driving the mirrors, and forming a structure on a workpiece with laser light reflected by the mirrors, the laser path display apparatus comprising: a commanded coordinate acquisition unit (12) acquiring commanded coordinates of the laser light relative to the workpiece, based on command information (operation command) to the mirror drive devices; an actual coordinate calculation unit (11) calculating actual coordinates of the laser light relative to the workpiece, based on a state of at least either the mirrors or the mirror drive devices; and a path display portion (18) overlappingly displaying (Fig: 6; M1, M2) a commanded laser path (M1) as a path based on a history of the commanded coordinates acquired and an actual laser path (M2) as a path based on a history of the actual coordinates calculated. Tezuka also discloses (Fig. 6) a deviation display portion (scale) as claimed. Tezuka does not disclose a layered structure or a display setting unit setting one or more layers of the layered structure as a display layer. Bryant et al. teach (Figs. 1, 11) a layered structure having a display setting unit (show image checkboxes) setting one or more of the layered structures as a display layer. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing of the invention to provide such a layered structure and display setting unit in the apparatus of Tezuka in view of Bryant et al. to handle more complex multilayer workpieces as known and predictable. In combination, the display layer being set would be displayed as claimed.
Regarding claim 2, Tezuka in view of Bryant et al. disclose the claimed invention as set forth above. Tezuka and Bryant et al. do not disclose the commanded laser path and the actual laser path in mutually different colors. However, it is well known to use different colors when overlapping lines to more easily distinguish the lines. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing of the invention to provide mutually exclusive colors as claimed in the apparatus of Tezuka in view of Bryant et al. to make the paths more easily distinguishable as known and predictable.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-11, 14 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.
Conclusion
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/THANH LUU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2878