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 .
Remarks
This Office Action is in response to the application filed on 03/07/25. Examiner acknowledged that claims 1-18 are pending.
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03/07/25, 02/18/26 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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) 1-4, 8-13, 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lys (US 6166496) in view of Dowling (US 2002/0070688).
Regarding Claim 1, Lys teaches a system for adjusting illumination conditions provided by a pool of light sources (Fig. 60: 4022, 4024) irradiating targets (Fig. 60: audiences in the theatre), the system comprising: a light scenario generation module configured to: receive a first set of inputs ([col34 ln35-40] theater mode), the first set of inputs comprising at least one light scenario objective ([col34 ln35-40] “such as that in a dark movie theater”) and a light capabilities profile for each light source of the pool of light sources; and provide a light scenario as an output ([col34 ln35-40] “at least one strip 4020 of LEDs 4006 or 4016 may be positioned on a surface of the handrail 4035 to direct a user to the location of the handrail”); a rendering module (Fig. 2: 504) operatively connected to the pool of light sources and the light scenario generation module, the rendering module being configured to: receive a second set of inputs ([col48 ln15-20] “A sunset scene”), the second set of inputs comprising the light scenario and the light capabilities profile for each light source of the pool of light sources; and send illumination instructions to each light source of the pool of light sources to adjust the illumination conditions provided by the pool of light sources ([col48 ln15-20] “A sunset in a movie scene could be imitated by a sunset generated by the room lights”), based on said at least one light scenario objective.
Lys does not teach a user interface configured to provide said at least one light scenario objective to the light scenario generation module.
Dowling is in the field of lighting (abstract) and teaches a user interface (Fig. 1; 1) configured to provide said at least one light scenario objective (Fig. 2A: program X) to the light scenario generation module.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling of the claimed invention to modify the device of Lys with a user interface as taught by Dowling in order to allow a user to change/modify lighting scene since a user interface allows for real-time adjustment to the lighting scene.
Regarding Claims 2 and 11, the combination of Lys and Dowling teach the system/method of claims 1 and 10, wherein the pool of light sources comprises different families of artificial light sources, at least one family of artificial light sources having different optical capabilities than at least one other family of artificial light sources (Lys Fig. 3: a plurality of R, G, B LEDs).
Regarding Claims 3 and 12, the combination of Lys and Dowling teach the system/method of claims 1 and 10, wherein said at least one light scenario objective comprises at least one of: a photobiological response of primary targets objective (Fig. 92A: plant growth) and a photobiological response of secondary targets objective (Lys [col61 ln60-65 col62 ln0-25] “method of illuminating a living organism…circadian rhythms”).
Regarding Claims 4 and 13, the combination of Lys and Dowling teach the system/method of claims 1 and 10, wherein said at least one light scenario objective comprises at least one specific objective, said at least one specific objective being associated with optical properties and comprising at least one of: photoperiod duration, intensity, illuminance, luminance, photosynthetic photon flux density, daily light integral, spectral composition (Lys [col71 ln0-5] “a multicolor LED source for a Lava (lamp, and LED-based ornamental fire or fire log with a simulated fire flicker pattern and coloring”), color rendering index (CRI), correlated color temperature (CCT) and/or geo-localized based properties.
Regarding Claims 8 and 17, the combination of Lys and Dowling teach the system/method of claims 1 and 10, wherein the user interface is configured to provide a matching score between said at least one light scenario objective and the illumination conditions provided by the pool of light sources, the matching score being an indication of an achievement of said at least one light scenario objective (Dowling Fig. 8: 185; [0076] “The thumbwheel may be constructed to have a predefined span, such as one and one-half rotations. In this latter case, one extreme of the span may represent a minimum parameter value and the other extreme of the span may represent a maximum parameter value”).
Regarding Claims 9 and 18, the combination of Lys and Dowling teach the system/method of claims 1 and 10, wherein the targets comprise crops, plants (Lys Fig. 92A) and/or livestock.
Regarding Claim 10, Lys teaches a method for adjusting illumination conditions provided by a pool of light sources (Fig. 60: 4022, 4024) irradiating targets (Fig. 60: audiences in the theatre), the method comprising: providing, at least one light scenario objective; receiving, with a light scenario generation module, a first set of inputs ([col34 ln35-40] theater mode), the first set of inputs comprising said at least one light scenario objective ([col34 ln35-40] “such as that in a dark movie theater”) and a light capabilities profile for each light source of the pool of light sources; providing a light scenario with the light scenario generation module ([col34 ln35-40] “at least one strip 4020 of LEDs 4006 or 4016 may be positioned on a surface of the handrail 4035 to direct a user to the location of the handrail”); receiving, with a rendering module (Fig. 2: 504), a second set of inputs, the second set of inputs ([col48 ln15-20] “A sunset scene”) comprising the light scenario and the light capabilities profile for each light source of the pool of light sources; and sending, with the rendering module, illumination instructions to each light source of the pool of light sources to adjust the illumination conditions provided by the pool of light sources ([col48 ln15-20] “A sunset in a movie scene could be imitated by a sunset generated by the room lights”), based on said at least one light scenario objective.
Lys does not teach a user interface
Dowling is in the field of lighting (abstract) and teaches a user interface (Fig. 1; 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling of the claimed invention to modify the device of Lys with a user interface as taught by Dowling in order to allow a user to change/modify lighting scene since a user interface allows for real-time adjustment to the lighting scene.
Claim(s) 5-7, 14-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over by Lys, Dowling as applied to claims 1 and 10 and further in view of Rosen (US 2023/0180685).
Regarding Claims 5 and 14, the combination of Lys and Dowling teach the system/method of claims 1 and 10, except said at least one light scenario objective comprises at least one adjoining objective, said at least one adjoining objective comprising at least one of: energy management, energy usage management, carbon emissions management, light pollution management and/or lamp lifetime management.
Rosen is in the field of lighting (abstract) and teaches at least one light scenario objective comprises at least one adjoining objective, said at least one adjoining objective comprising at least one of: energy management, energy usage management ([0088] “operation component 704 can customize light output to reduce energy usage since plants 1204a, 1204b, and/or 1204c don't have exposed portions with chlorophyll that convert light, and operation component 704 can provide appropriate resources (e.g. water, fertilizer, feed, temperature, oxygen, or any other suitable resource) to promote germination of the seeds”), carbon emissions management, light pollution management and/or lamp lifetime management.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling of the claimed invention to modify the device of Lys and Dowling with energy management as taught by Rosen in order to reduce usage of energy for horticulture environment since during germination of seeds less lighting is needed as unexposed plants don’t have photosynthesis capability yet.
Regarding Claims 6 and 15, the combination of Lys, Dowling and Rosen teach the system/method of claims 1 and 10, wherein said at least one light scenario objective comprises a plurality of light scenario objectives, the light scenario module being configured for: processing data relative to an individual weight of each of the light scenario objectives; and once the data has been processed, ranking the plurality of light scenario objectives to prioritize a given objective instead of the others (Rosen [0078] “Operation component 704 can employ the learning to make decisions regarding one or more actions to perform based on a current set of monitored characteristics of the horticulture environment and an objective”).
Regarding Claims 7 and 16, the combination of Lys, Dowling and Rosen teach the system/method of claims 6 and 15, wherein ranking the plurality of light scenario objectives is based on an emergency level of the given objective (Rosen [0102] “A support vector machine (SVM) is an example of a classifier that can be employed. The SVM operates by finding a hyper-surface in the space of possible inputs…Other directed and undirected model classification approaches include, e.g., naïve Bayes, Bayesian networks, decision trees, neural networks, fuzzy logic models, and/or probabilistic classification models providing different patterns of independence can be employed. Classification as used herein also is inclusive of statistical regression that is utilized to develop models of priority”).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HENRY T LUONG whose telephone number is (571)270-7008. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday: 8:00-6:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Alexander Taningco can be reached at (571) 272-8048. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Henry Luong/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2845
