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 is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis 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.
Background
The Amendments to the Specification, the Amendments to the Abstract, and the Amendments to the Claims in the Applicant’s Preliminary Amendment, filed on 01/16/2025, have been entered.
According to the Amendment, claims 1-8 remain pending but have been amended.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. §112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 2 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §112(b), as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, regards as the invention. Specifically, claim 2 is on a system claim for identifying and positioning a rip/tear in a conveyor belt. However, claim 2 then goes on to further define the claimed system in terms of several method steps. As recited, the actual class of invention under §101 is unclear. Correction is required.
Additionally, claim 8 recites, in part, “the maintenance area is arranged at the tail to prevent the roller motor from being driven.” (Emphasis added.) The term “tail” is a relative term which does not specify what the “tail” refers to. The term could reasonably refer to the tail of the conveyor belt, the tail of the roller motor, the tail of the carrier roller bracket, or any other component of the claimed invention. Accordingly, the ambiguity renders the claim indefinite. Correction is required.
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 of this title, 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, 5, 6, and 8 are rejected under § 103 as being obvious over WO 2022073084 to Augusto (Augusto) (as best understood by machine translation) in view of US Pub. No. 2023/0174315 to Kleczewski et al. (Kleczewski) and further in view of US Pub. No. 2007/0012547 to DePaso (DePaso). In regards to claim 1, Augusto discloses a system for visually identifying and positioning a tearing fault of a conveyer belt of a mining belt conveyor (¶ [0052]), comprising:
an industrial camera (2), the industrial camera being fixedly mounted above a return conveyer belt (1) and configured to collect a crack image of a surface of the conveyer belt of the belt conveyor (see ¶¶ [0028] & [0052-0053] for providing one or more cameras positioned above a conveyor belt, the cameras configured to capture images of all or part of the face of the conveyor belt);
an industrial computer (not shown), the industrial computer being connected to the industrial camera and the belt speed sensor, and configured to determine whether the tearing fault has occurred on the conveyer belt according to the crack image of the surface of the conveyer belt of the belt conveyor collected by the industrial camera (see ¶¶ [0073-0080] for describing a programmable logic controller (PLC) configured to detect the occurrence of tears in conveyor belts by means of cameras and imaging analysis) and
Although Augusto does not explicitly disclose the claimed belt speed sensor and industrial frequency converter, such features are found in the prior art. In fact, Kleczewski teaches a conveyor belt monitoring system, comprising:
a belt speed sensor (46), the belt speed sensor being configured to collect a moving speed of the conveyer belt in real time (see ¶ [0020] for providing speed sensors configured to monitor the speed of a conveyor belt); and
an industrial computer (26) to collect the moving speed of the conveyer belt collected by the belt speed sensor (see ¶ [0020] for describing a processor configured to receive speed sensor data and determine the travelling speed of the conveyor belt); and
Thus, it would have been obvious to modify the rip detection system of Augusto with the speed monitoring feature of Kleczewski in order to help track the position/location of a targeted object/defect on the conveyor belt.
Although Augusto in view of Kleczewski does not explicitly disclose the claimed frequency converter, such a feature is found in the prior art. In fact, DePaso teaches an automated conveyor system with variable-speed drive motors wherein an industrial frequency converter (56), the industrial frequency converter being controlled by a logic controller (52), and the industrial frequency converter controlling a roller motor (38) to align the position of the fault of the conveyer belt to a maintenance area (see ¶¶ [0022-0023] for providing a motor drive, such as a variable-frequency drive, to adjust the speed of the motor according to the speed signal generator).
Thus, it would have been obvious to modify Augusto in view of Kleczewski with the motor control feature of DePaso in order to regulate the speed and torque of the conveyor belt.
In regards to claim 5, Augusto further discloses that the industrial camera and a return speed direction of the return conveyer belt form an included angle of 45°. See Fig. 1 showing a relative position between the conveyor belt and overhead cameras at a near 45° angle).
In regards to claim 6, Augusto further discloses that the system further comprises an illumination device (4), wherein the illumination device adopts a linear industrial illumination device, is fixed above the return conveyer belt and below the industrial camera and forms an included angle of 135° with the speed direction of the return conveyer belt. See Fig. 1 and ¶¶ [0054] & [0065-0067] (providing several lasers disposed above the conveyor belt at different angles to help cameras with capturing images for conveyor belt rip detection).
In regards to claim 8, Kleczewski further discloses that the maintenance area is arranged at the tail to prevent the roller motor from being driven. See Fig. 6 (showing an area capable of performing maintenance at the end of the conveyor belt).
Claim 2 is rejected under §103 as being unpatentable over Augusto in view of Kleczewski and DePaso, supra, as applied to claim 1, and further in view of US Pub. No. 2006/0276985 to Xu et al. (Xu). For claim 2, Augusto in view of Kleczewski and DePaso disclose all limitations of the claimed invention but for the specific technique of rip detection determination.
Although Augusto in view of Kleczewski and DePaso does not explicitly disclose this limitation, such a feature is found in the prior art. In fact, Xu teaches an automated surface distress measurement system wherein determining rip detection in a conveyor belt comprises: acquiring a split image of the crack of the conveyer belt through a PCNN; extracting an ROI through a contour function in open; counting pixel points in the ROI to calculate the area of the crack; and determining tearing if the area of the crack exceeds a threshold. See ¶ [0019] (providing a processor in communication with a digital imager for processing at least part of one or more digital images in real time, wherein the processor determines the intensity of one or more pixels of the one or more digital images, compares the intensity of one of the one or more pixels to the intensity of another of the one or more pixels and the comparison of intensities produces a pattern that is compared to a longitudinal template, a transverse template, a diagonal template or a combination thereof, wherein the comparison of the template to the pattern indicates the presence of cracking).
Thus, it would have been obvious to modify Augusto in view of Kleczewski and DePaso with the rip detection determination technique of Xu in order to detect rips or tears in a conveyor belt using image analysis.
Claim 7 is rejected under §103 as being unpatentable over Augusto in view of Kleczewski and DePaso, supra, as applied to claim 1, and further in view of US Pub. No. 2012/0168281 to Twigger et al. (Twigger). For claim 7, Augusto in view of Kleczewski and DePaso disclose all limitations of the claimed invention but for a measuring wheel encoder system.
Although Augusto in view of Kleczewski and DePaso does not explicitly disclose this limitation, such a feature is found in the prior art. In fact, Twigger teaches a conveyor belt monitoring system wherein the belt speed sensor (20) is mounted above the return conveyer belt and fixed on a carrier roller bracket (13), and a tension spring (27) is arranged at the tail of the carrier roller bracket, so that a measuring wheel (21) of the belt speed sensor clings to a surface of the return conveyer belt. See ¶ [0024] (providing an encoder in contact with a conveyor belt to obtain belt velocity measurements, the encoder being a wheel-type encoder in contact with the conveyor belt and including a wheel mounted for rotation to an arm, a coil spring and pivot assembly connected to an encoder housing for biasing the wheel against the conveyor belt surface).
Thus, it would have been obvious to modify Augusto in view of Kleczewski and DePaso with the measuring wheel encoder system of Twigger in order to enable the system to map signals from the sensor to physical locations on the belt, and thereby help facilitate conveyor belt rip detection.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 and 4 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.
Relevant Prior Art
US Pub. No. 2018/0201449 to Hou discloses a conveyor belt monitoring system for determining whether or not an abnormality has occurred in the conveyor belt by successively detecting elongation of a running conveyor belt using an elongation detection mechanism, by successively detecting tension acting on a core layer forming the conveyor belt using a tension detection mechanism, and, on the basis of data obtained therefrom, monitoring the presence/absence of the abnormality in the conveyor belt using a control unit.
US Pub. No. 2024/0166449 to Kou et al. discloses an inspection robot system including one or more detection devices, a rail, a traction device, one or more connecting devices, and a multi-axis manipulator. The detection devices are configured to at least obtain environmental image information. The rail is suspended in an air. The traction device includes a steel cable and a steel cable drive assembly. The steel cable drive assembly is connected to the steel cable and is configured to drive the steel cable to move along an axial direction of the steel cable. The connecting devices are slidably connected to the rail. The detection devices are respectively arranged on the connecting devices. The connecting devices are connected to the steel cable and are configured to move along the rail under a traction of the steel cable. At least one of the connecting devices is/are each provided with the multi-axis manipulator.
US Pub. No. 2014/0336812 to Rathmann et al. discloses a system for monitoring a condition of a conveyor belt arranged to rotate about at least a motor drive pulley and an idler pulley. A sensor unit can determine at least one sensor signal representing at least one operating variable of the electrical motor. A data processing unit can derive from the sensor signal at least one corresponding time dependent data signal, to detect irregularities in the data signal which indicate that a splice region of the conveyor belt passes the drive pulley and/or the idler pulley, to determine from a change in shape or in frequency of the irregularities, whether the condition of the conveyor belt has changed, and to send a signal which reflects a change in the condition of the conveyor belt to at least one of a display unit, a storage unit and/or a decision making unit.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KYLE LOGAN whose telephone number is (571) 270-7769. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9-5 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, JACOB SCOTT can be reached at (571) 270-3415. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KYLE O LOGAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3655
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