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, 3, 4, 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (U.S. PGPUB 2025/0116508) in view of Marcus et al. (U.S. Patent 5,581,351).
Regarding claims 1, 3, 4, 6, Lee et al. disclose (Figs.; [0071]) a method and a film thickness measurement device or system comprising: a measurer (120) that measures a film thickness of a sheet- shaped member (1) by calculating a difference (subtracting) between a first outer diameter (outer diameter) of a roll (111) for transporting the sheet-shaped member with an outer peripheral surface of the roll and a total of a second outer diameter of the roll and a film thickness of a portion of the sheet-shaped member that is in contact with the roll. Lee et al. do not disclose the first outer diameter with the sheet-shaped member being in contact with the roll. Marcus et al. teach (Fig. 15) measuring thickness by a difference between two measurements when the sheet-shaped member is in contact with the roll. Marcus et al. further teach first and second distance measurers (201-1, 201-2) as claimed. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing of the invention to provide such a configuration where the sheet-shaped member is in contact with the roll in the apparatus of Lee et al. in view of Marcus et al. to increase throughput or obtain faster measurements as known and predictable.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2,5 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
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/THANH LUU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2878
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