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 . In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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) 1-9 and 11-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Naderhirn et al. (2014/0168420) in view of Arbeit et al. (2015/0066248).
Regarding claim 1: Naderhirn discloses a method performed by a controller, the method comprising: determining flight information for a flying imaging device including a flight path including at least altitude information and setting information for a camera, based on a specified area including a flight start position and a flight end position for map data including an inspection target (Fig. 2 and Paragraph 0017-0019, Wherein GPS includes map data); controlling flight of the flying imaging device based on the flight path (Fig. 2 and Paragraph 0017-0019, 0026); and controlling stoppage of a flight and transitions to a hovering state, or controlling return to a base station (Fig. 2 and Paragraph 0017-0019, 0026, Hovering state).
Naderhirn fails to explicitly disclose controlling presentation of the flight path on the map data based on the flight information.
However, Arbeit discloses a similar method performed by a controller and further discloses controlling presentation of the flight path on the map data based on the flight information (Paragraph 0049.
Therefore it would have been obvious to modify the method of Naderhirn in view oof Arbeit in order to improve the ease the difficulty of controlling the UAV.
Regarding claim 2: Naderhirn further discloses wherein the setting information for the camera is an imaging direction of the camera (Paragraph 0018).
Regarding claim 3: As discussed above, Naderhirn in view of Arbeit discloses the claimed invention and Arbeit further discloses displaying the flight path of the flying imaging device on a display (Paragraph 0049). See claim 1 above for obviousness and motivation to combine.
Regarding claims 4 and 5: Naderhirn discloses wherein the inspection target is a structure (Paragraph 0002).
Regarding claim 6: Naderhirn discloses determining position information of the flying imaging device based on information from at least one of a vision sensor or GPS information (Paragraph 0019).
Regarding claim 7: Naderhirn discloses controlling a display of information on a general condition of the structure based on position information related to the structure (Fig. 2 and Paragraph 0017).
Regarding claim 8: Naderhirn discloses wherein the altitude information is a relative height from a reference location (Fig. 2).
Regarding claim 9: Naderhirn discloses wherein the reference location is the base station (Fig. 2, wherein the earth is shown as the base station).
Regarding claims 11-20: these claims contain the same features and limitations as claims 1-9 above and are therefore rejected under the same basis and rationale.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Naderhirn in view of Arbeit in further view of Rix. (2013/0168498)
Regarding claim 10: As discussed above, Naderhirn in view of Arbeit discloses the claimed invention except controlling the flying imaging device to use a flash when capturing an image. However, Rix discloses a similar flying imaging device and further discloses controlling the flying imaging device to use a flash when capturing an image (Paragraph 0361). Therefore, it would have been obvious to modify the flying imaging device of Naderhirn in view of Arbeit further in view of Rix in order to improve image quality.
Conclusion
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/MICHAEL D LANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3667