DETAILED ACTION
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The listing of references in the specification is not a proper information disclosure statement. 37 CFR 1.98(b) requires a list of all patents, publications, or other information submitted for consideration by the Office, and MPEP § 609.04(a) states, "the list may not be incorporated into the specification but must be submitted in a separate paper." Therefore, unless the references have been cited by the examiner on form PTO-892, they have not been considered.
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 and 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Lekmine (FR3057079). Lekmine teaches an incremental magnetic encoder (1) defining an encoder axis (A, fig. 1) and comprising a fixed body (5) and a body movable (3) with respect to the fixed body along at least one direction of encoding; one of the bodies, called first body, comprising: a first support (25) comprising N magnetic elements (ie. 12) arranged along the direction of encoding according to a homogeneous pitch PO and defining a magnetic alternation along the direction (page 17, lines 1-3); the other body, called second body, comprising see page 17, line 27 through page 18, line 5):- a second support comprising K*M (e.g. 2*2=4) magnetic elements (21) arranged inhomogeneously (see figs. 5a and 6 for example) along the direction of encoding opposite the N magnetic elements, the K*M magnetic elements forming M (2) groups of K (e.g. 2) magnetic elements, each of the M groups comprising an initial magnetic element of said group, the initial elements of the M different groups being spaced from each other along the direction of encoding according to a homogeneous pitch P1, the K-1 magnetic elements of each group being spaced from the initial magnetic element of said group according to variable pitches Pi looped back over a predetermined extent along the direction of encoding (see page 17, line 27 to page 18, line 5);- at least one magnetic detector arranged opposite the first support and configured for quantifying each movement of the movable body along the direction of encoding (inherent from page 6, lines 1-6, “The stator 5 further comprises here a control unit 17 which includes an electronic memory and calculation means, dedicated or possibly shared in a global electronic or computer network of the vehicle. The control unit 17 controls in particular one or more functions of the vehicle, for example by means of electronic transistors or switches, and modifies parameters of the functions when the indexing positions of the rotor 3 relative to the stator 5 are reached”), wherein, within each group, the magnetic elements are uniformly spaced from each other (the two elements of each group of two are necessarily spaced uniformly). The applicant is also directed to review fig. 6.
Regarding claim 7, the second body (stator) is the fixed body.
Regarding claim 8, the direction of encoding corresponds to a translation along the encoder axis or to rotation about the encoder axis.
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) 9-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lekmine (FR3057079) in view of Moriyama (U.S. Publication No. 2019/0086238). Lekmine teaches the salient features of the claimed invention except for the movable body is movable relative to the fixed body furthermore along an additional direction of encoding perpendicular to said direction of encoding. Moriyama teaches that it was known to allow the movable body to be movable relative to the fixed body furthermore along an additional direction (fig. 1, X direction) of encoding perpendicular to said direction of encoding (fig. 1, Ɵ). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to utilize the features of Moriyama for the purpose of detecting a linear motion in addition to the rotational motion.
Regarding claim 10, first body and the second body comprise a plurality of additional magnetic elements (76, 91 in fig. 6) arranged along the additional direction of encoding on the two bodies at least partially facing each other. See fig. 6 and ¶74.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-6 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Levin (U.S. Publication No. 20040100440) teaches detecting motion of a switch in both a rotary direction and a linear direction perpendicular to the rotary direction.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER E MAHONEY whose telephone number is (571)272-2122. The examiner can normally be reached 9-5:30.
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/CHRISTOPHER E MAHONEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2852
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