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 § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6-10, 12-16 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Foley (US-9492729-B2) (hereinafter "FOLEY").
Regarding claims 1, 7 and 13, FOLEY discloses a identifying a presence of a ball at a first location via one or more sensors (col. 3, ll. 39-45); creating a score based on the first location and storing the score in memory (col. 3, ll. 45-50; col. 5, ll. 39-41); identifying a presence of the ball at one or more additional locations via the one or more sensors (col. 7, ll. 35-38; col. 5, ll. 56-58); adding an additional score to the score based on the one or more additional locations to create a final score and storing the final score in memory (col. 3, ll. 52-55; col. 5, ll. 41-43); and initiating a new game command (col. 5, ll. 46-48; col. 3, ll. 57-58 where reset signal is interpreted as disclosing the claimed limitation of "initiating a new game command" because the reset signal functions as a command to clear the system, enabling the start of a new game session).
Regarding claims 2, 8 and 14, FOLEY further discloses wherein the first location is inside a divot area of a divot entity device (col. 5, ll. 36-41; Abstract).
Regarding claims 3, 9 and 15, FOLEY further discloses wherein the presence of the ball is detected via a radio frequency tag affixed to the ball (col. 3, ll. 19-21; Claim 1).
Regarding claims 4, 10 and 16, FOLEY further discloses detecting a radio frequency (RF) signal from the ball at one or more divot entities comprising a RF receiver (col. 5, ll. 54-56; col. 3, ll. 38-43).
Regarding claims 6, 12 and 18, FOLEY further discloses receiving a radio signal transmitted from the ball at a computing device associated with one or more divot entity devices (fig. 8, col. 3, ll. 19-49, where the golf club is considered a computing device); determining a location of the ball based on the radio signal (col. 3, ll. 39-45 where the ball ID signal is utilized in combination with the hole signal to identify the ball location); and applying the score based on the location of the ball (col. 3, ll. 52-55; col. 5, ll. 41-43).
Regarding claim 7, FOLEY further discloses a processor (considered to be the electronics as depicted in fig. 5). See rejection of claim 1 with respect to the remainder of the claim limitations.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 11 and 17 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 DMITRY SUHOL whose telephone number is (571)272-4430. The examiner can normally be reached Generally Monday - Friday 8am-4PM.
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/DMITRY SUHOL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3715
