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 .
Inventorship
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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) 1-3, 7-13 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Niveditha et al (EP 4245618) in view of Chen (WO 2023/174026).
Niveditha et al teaches analyzing (see [0043]) an image for a pedal and detecting a location of the pedal; determining the operation intensity of the pedal based on the location; and storing the operation intensity (see figures 2, 4, [0043] – [0045], [0054]). Niveditha et al does not teach a video for a pedal. Chen teaches a video for detecting the pedal position (see paragraph 1 of mode for invention also claim 1 of ‘026). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to employ the video camera on the pedal detection device of Niveditha et al as taught by Chen in order to improve the accuracy of detecting the position of the pedal.
For claims 2, 12 (see [0023] of ‘618).
For claims 3, 13 (see [0016] of ‘618).
For claims 7-10, 17-20 (see [0056] – [0057] of ‘618).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6, 14-16 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HAI H HUYNH whose telephone number is (571)272-4844. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00 AM-4:00 PM.
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/HAI H HUYNH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3747
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