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) 1-8, 15 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bech et al (2021/0387537A1) in view of Mennie et al (6,731,785).
Bech discloses an electronic control apparatus 100, comprising: a housing 124 in which electrical circuits are mounted; a power connector 120 provided on a housing 124 and electrically connected to an external power source 106 ; a power circuit 110 configured to receive external power through the power connector 120 and supply power to the electrical circuits; an ultraviolet sensor 122 (see also claim 3) mounted in the housing , and configured to detect ultraviolet light and output an ultraviolet detected signal corresponding to the detection of the ultraviolet light (para 0021); and a processor 112 configured to block power supply to at least one part of the electrical circuits in response to the ultraviolet detected signal from the ultraviolet sensor (para 0021).
The device taught by Bech differs from the claims by not reciting the mounting of the ultraviolet sensor on a printed circuit board and by not having a the ultraviolet sensor on a separate printed circuit board connected to another printed circuit board including other circuit components (independent claim 15). Mennie discloses an electronic circuit responsive to the output of an ultraviolet sensor 340 that is mounted on printed circuit board 501 and also discloses a second PCB 502 disposed below the first PCB 501 containing further circuits for processing data from other sensors (see col.27, lines 37-40).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill at the time of filing the invention to combine the teachings of Mennie into the teachings of Bech to meet the claims because both teachings are electronic circuits responsive to the outputs of ultraviolet light sensors, with Mennie teaching the useful and well known practice of using printed circuit boards to mount electronic components.
With regard to claim 2, the use of ultraviolet-C light with the recited sensors would be non-inventive conventional practice when using light sensors because there are several known UV light types which would be selected by persons of ordinary skill based on system requirements (also see the photodiode of claim 9 of Bech).
With regard to claims 3-5 and 8, claims 6 and 7 of Bech recite design features to direct light to the UV sensor mounting location.
With regard to claims 6 and 7 of this Application, claims 3 and 4 of Bech recite the sensor being placed around a power connector.
With regard to claim 16, the first and second PCBs are recited in Mennie to be place above and below each other, which would meet the limitation of the PCBs being parallel.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 20 is allowed.
Claims 9-14 and 17-19 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The above mentioned claims recite additional features, such as the actuators of claims 9,17 and 20, that have not been taught or been fairly suggested by the prior art of record.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEPHEN W JACKSON whose telephone number is (571)272-2051. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 6:30-3:00.
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SWJackson
August 7, 2026
/STEPHEN W JACKSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2838
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