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 .
Priority
The disclosure of the prior-filed provisional application, Application No. 63/596,712, with filing date of 11/07/2023, provides adequate support or enablement in the manner provided by 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph for one or more claims of this application: claims 1-7. Accordingly, with the benefit of the prior application, claims 1-7 are entitled to the priority date of 11/07/2023.
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.
Claims 1 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DING US 20220334165 A1 in view of YOO KR 102066535 B1.
Regarding claim 1, DING teaches a method for determining transformer operational status, the method comprising:
operating a distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) system and capturing vibrations from a plurality of transformers (Fig. 2 [0031] [0032] DFOS system to detect baseline/anomalous vibrations in transformers on utility poles);
determining, from the vibrations captured, transformer operational status of the one or more of the transformers from a 120Hz vibration signal (Figs. 2, 4 & 5 [0034] [0035] [0039] 120Hz humming signal that linked to transformers conditions is used for detecting the operational status of the transformers).
DING does not explicitly teach the determining is from a phase delay of the 120Hz vibration signal.
YOO explicitly teaches in an analogous art that the determining is from a phase delay of the 120Hz vibration signal (page 2 paragraph 7, analyzing the phase delay of sound waves propagating from the device to find the position of the device).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified DING to incorporate the teachings of YOO because they all directed to vibration detection, to make the method wherein the determining is from a phase delay of the 120Hz vibration signal. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification so as to determine the position of the device, as LUO teaches in page 2 paragraph 7.
Regarding claim 7, DING further teaches a combined phase shift is determined using a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of the 120Hz signals (Fig. 5 [0046] FFT algorithm).
Claims 2-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DING in view of YOO as applied to claims 1 and 7 above, further in view of DING Y US 20220283001 A1.
Regarding claim 2, neither DING nor YOO explicitly further teaches a first one of the one or more transformers is operational, and a second one of the one or more transformers is non-operational; wherein the first and second transformer are positioned on utility poles that are immediately next to one another in a set of utility poles.
DING Y explicitly teaches in an analogous art that a first one of the one or more transformers is operational, and a second one of the one or more transformers is non-operational; wherein the first and second transformer are positioned on utility poles that are immediately next to one another in a set of utility poles (Fig. 3 [0044] when the humming of 120Hz does not exist at one pole location, the device is non-operational, the one pole location that the humming of 120Hz presents next to the one doesn’t is operational, i.e. “a first one is operational and a second one is non-operational; wherein the first and second transformer are positioned on utility poles that are immediately next to one another in a set of utility poles”. In addition, the choice of one of two adjacent transformers non-operational and the other operational would have been mere design choice from three options: both operational, both non-operational, and one operational the other non-operational, that does not bear patentability. See MPEP 2143(I)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified DING and YOO to incorporate the teachings of DING Y because they all directed to vibration detection, to make the method wherein a first one of the one or more transformers is operational, and a second one of the one or more transformers is non-operational; wherein the first and second transformer are positioned on utility poles that are immediately next to one another in a set of utility poles. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification so as to determine whether the device on the pole location is operational, as DING Y teaches in [0044].
Regarding claim 2, DING in view of DING Y further teaches a first one of the one or more transformers is non-operational, and a second one of the one or more transformers is operational; wherein the first and second transformer are positioned on utility poles that are immediately next to one another in a set of utility poles (Fig. 3 [0044] when the humming of 120Hz does not exist at one pole location, the device is non-operational, the one pole location that the humming of 120Hz presents next to the one doesn’t is operational, i.e. “a first one is non-operational and a second one is operational; wherein the first and second transformer are positioned on utility poles that are immediately next to one another in a set of utility poles”. In addition, the choice of one of two adjacent transformers non-operational and the other operational would have been mere design choice from three options: both operational, both non-operational, and one operational the other non-operational, that does not bear patentability. See MPEP 2143(I)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified DING and YOO to incorporate the teachings of DING Y because they all directed to vibration detection, to make the method wherein a first one of the one or more transformers is non-operational, and a second one of the one or more transformers is operational; wherein the first and second transformer are positioned on utility poles that are immediately next to one another in a set of utility poles. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification so as to determine whether the device on the pole location is operational, as DING Y teaches in [0044].
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DING in view of YOO as applied to claims 1 and 7 above, further in view of LIU CN 113804285 A.
Regarding claim 4, DING further teaches a first one of the one or more transformers is operational, and a second one of the one or more transformers is operational with 120Hz signals (Fig. 5 [0046] the three transformers next to each other are operational with 120Hz signals).
Neither DING nor YOO explicitly further teaches a 120Hz signal from the first transformer exhibits an amplitude that is the same as an amplitude of a 120Hz signal from the second transformer.
LIU explicitly teaches in an analogous art that a 120Hz signal from the first transformer exhibits an amplitude that is the same as an amplitude of a 120Hz signal from the second transformer (Fig. 3 page 6 paragraphs 4 and 9, for three transformers adjacent to each other, all the sound source amplitudes are set to same value. In addition, the choice of two adjacent transformers having same amplitude would have been mere design choice from two options: same or not the same, that does not bear patentability. See MPEP 2143(I)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified DING and YOO to incorporate the teachings of LIU because they all directed to vibration detection, to make the method wherein a 120Hz signal from the first transformer exhibits an amplitude that is the same as an amplitude of a 120Hz signal from the second transformer. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification so as to simulate the combined vibration signals, as LIU teaches in page 6 paragraphs 4 and 9.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DING in view of YOO as applied to claims 1 and 7 above, further in view of FENG CN 115438685 A.
Regarding claim 4, DING further teaches a first one of the one or more transformers is operational, and a second one of the one or more transformers is operational with 120Hz signals (Fig. 5 [0046] the three transformers next to each other are operational with 120Hz signals).
Neither DING nor YOO explicitly further teaches a 120Hz signal from the first transformer exhibits an amplitude that is less than an amplitude of a 120Hz signal from the second transformer.
FENG explicitly teaches in an analogous art that a 120Hz signal from the first transformer exhibits an amplitude that is less than an amplitude of a 120Hz signal from the second transformer (Figs. 5&7, page 11 paragraphs 2-3 from the bottom, all transformers have different voltage levels and different transformer locations, the sound collected have different amplitudes at 100 Hz as shown in Fig. 7, i.e. “a 120Hz signal from the first transformer exhibits an amplitude that is less than an amplitude of a 120Hz signal from the second transformer”. In addition, the choice of two adjacent transformers having different amplitude would have been mere design choice from two options: same or not the same, that does not bear patentability. See MPEP 2143(I)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified DING and YOO to incorporate the teachings of FENG because they all directed to vibration detection, to make the method wherein a 120Hz signal from the first transformer exhibits an amplitude that is less than an amplitude of a 120Hz signal from the second transformer. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification so as to fully research the sound signal feature of the transformer, as FENG teaches in page 11 paragraphs 2-3 from the bottom.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DING in view of YOO and DING Y as applied to claims 2-3 above, further in view of QIAO CN 106644052 A and CHENG WO 2024058670 A1.
Regarding claim 6, the combination of DING, YOO and DING Y does not explicitly further teach the phase delay is determined according to the following
φ(x)=2πxf⁄c,
where x represents the distance to the signal source, f is the frequency 120 Hz, and c is the speed of sound in fiber set to 3000 m/s.
QIAO explicitly teaches in an analogous art that the phase delay is determined according to the following φ(x)=2πxf⁄c, where x represents the distance to the signal source, f is the frequency 120 Hz, and c is the speed of sound in fiber (page 4 paragraph 4 from the bottom, the phase difference is calculated by 2π*l*f/s, l is the distance, f is the frequency, s is sound speed. In addition, the calculation of the phase delay of acoustic wave is well known and obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, therefore does not bear patentability).
CHENG explicitly teaches in an analogous art that the sound speed is set at 3000 m/s (page 15 paragraph 1, sound speed set to 3000 m/s. In addition, the choice of 3000 m/s of sound speed is mere design choice, that does not bear patentability. See MPEP 2143(I)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified DING, YOO and DING Y to incorporate the teachings of QIAO and CHENG because they all directed to vibration detection, to make the method wherein the phase delay is determined according to the following φ(x)=2πxf⁄c, where x represents the distance to the signal source, f is the frequency 120 Hz, and c is the speed of sound in fiber set to 3000 m/s. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification so as to calculate the phase difference, as QIAO teaches in page 4 paragraph 4 from the bottom, and CHENG teaches in page 15 paragraph 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
OH KR 101899079 B1 teaches delay time of acoustic wave.
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/M.T./ Examiner, Art Unit 2115
/KAMINI S SHAH/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2115
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