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, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chaves (US 2011/0062237) in view of Harney (US 2019/0147202) and Ambartsoumian (US 12,620,326).
Referring to Claim 1, Chaves teaches a system comprising:
a thin-film wireless label comprising a wireless communication circuit, having an identifier (see paragraph 20 which shows a thin printed label and paragraph 31 which shows an RFID chip on a label), the wireless label further comprising: a microprocessor (see paragraph 33 which shows an active RFID tag which implies the inclusion of a microprocessor); a memory (see paragraph 43 which shows the RFID tag including a memory).
Harney teaches a trace layer arranged such that printing a serialization code by a printer on the wireless label induces a signal on the trace layer (see label 28 in fig. 3B showing a barcode and fig. 4 which shows the RFID circuitry on a trace layer under the printed label 28), the induced signal detectable by the microprocessor, wherein the microprocessor is configured to generate a representation of the serialization code, based on the induced signal and store the representation in the memory (see paragraph 127 which shows RFID circuitry under the label 28 inducing a signal in order to read the label information and store to either EPC of TID memory). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Harney to the device of Chaves in order to better mitigate error when matching labels to its respective packages.
The combination of Chaves and Harney does not teach the printer as a thermal printer. Ambartsoumian teaches the printer as a thermal printer (see col. 12, lines 29-43 which shows thermal printing for labels). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Ambartsoumian to the modified device of Chaves and Harney in order to better ensure higher durability of the wireless labels.
Claim 11 has similar limitations as claim 1.
Referring to Claims 2 and 12, Harney also teaches a wake-up port, wherein the port is configured to receive a voltage, and transition the microprocessor from an inactive state to an active state (see paragraph 20 which shows the powering up of the transceiver which implies the transition from inactive to active state).
Referring to Claims 4 and 14, Chaves also teaches the representation comprising a numerical string (see numerical strings under the barcode in figs. 1A and 1B).
Referring to Claims 5 and 15, Harney also teaches the serialization code is printed on a printable surface area of the wireless label on a layer of the wireless label (see fig. 4 where the code is printed on label 28 as described in paragraph 139), wherein the trace layer is arranged in another layer of the wireless label, parallel to the printable surface area layer and substantially overlapping the printable surface (see RFID substrate 50 overlapping label 28 in fig. 4).
Referring to Claims 8 and 18, Harney also teaches an RFID circuit configured to provide a wake-up voltage to the microprocessor (see paragraph 20 which shows the powering up of the transceiver which implies the transition from inactive to active state by powering up the RFID circuit).
Claim(s) 3, 6, 13, and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chaves, Harney, and Ambartsoumian, and further in view of Batra et al. (US 2007/0285237).
Referring to Claims 3 and 13, Chaves, Harney, and Ambartsoumian do not teach an analog to digital (ADC) converter, configured to receive the signal and convert the signal to a series of 0s and 1s, based on levels of the signal, relative to a selected threshold. Batra teaches an analog to digital (ADC) converter, configured to receive the signal and convert the signal to a series of 0s and 1s, based on levels of the signal, relative to a selected threshold (see paragraph 27 which shows the ADC where a signal of 0s and 1s is known in the art as any digital signal and is based on signal strength threshold). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Batra to the modified device of Chaves, Harney, and Ambartsoumian in order to better maintain high signal quality.
Referring to Claims 6 and 16, Batra also teaches a wake-up port, wherein the port is configured to receive a voltage, and transition the microprocessor from an inactive state to an active state and the received voltage is from an analog to digital converter (ADC) component of the wireless label (see paragraph 27 which shows the ADC and paragraph 64 which shows the wake up trigger for the device). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Batra to the modified device of Chaves, Harney, and Ambartsoumian in order to better maintain high signal quality.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 9, 10, 17, 19, and 20 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.
Regarding Claims 7 and 17, Chaves, Ambartsoumian, Harney, and Batra do not teach the microprocessor comprises a wake-up port, wherein the port is configured to receive a voltage, and transition the microprocessor from an inactive state to an active state and the received voltage is from an RFID circuit of the wireless label, wherein the RFID generates the voltage via mutual induction generated due to a current traveling through one or more components of the thermal printer.
Regarding Claims 9 and 19, Chaves, Ambartsoumian, Harney, and Batra do not teach the serialization code comprising a barcode having widths and spaces and the representation comprises bars having widths and separated by spacings, wherein the widths of the representation bars correspond to periods of the induced signal being ON and the spacing between the bars of the representation correspond to periods of the induced signal being OFF.
Regarding Claims 10 and 20, Chaves, Ambartsoumian, Harney, and Batra do not teach the induced signal generated by mutual induction from a pulse width modulated signal generated by the thermal printer to supply a current to a resistive circuit in the thermal printer.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EUGENE YUN whose telephone number is (571)272-7860. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Wesley Kim can be reached at 5712727867. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/EUGENE YUN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648
Prosecution Insights