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
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, 7-8, 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHEN (US 20220100690 A1), in view of OH (US 20190302750 A1)
Regarding Claim 1, CHEN teaches:
An equipment malfunction predictive diagnosis apparatus comprising: an equipment data collection unit (CHEN, Fig. 3, 300) equipped with at least one or more individual boards configured to correspond to types of diagnosis-targeted equipment (CHEN, Fig. 3, 316)
and have a plurality of input channels into which data of the diagnosis-targeted equipment is input; (CHEN, Fig. 3, 306, [0050] the data acquisition card 300 of FIG. 3 includes a plurality of optical transmitters and receivers 306 (e.g., MiniPODs™) disposed in close relative proximity to the FPGA 302 (e.g., on left and right sides of the FPGA) and corresponding fiber optic links 308)
and an equipment data processing unit provided with a common board configured to supply power to the equipment data collection unit (CHEN, [0005] A data acquisition (DAQ) card usually refers to the hardware that interfaces between the measured signals and a computer. DAQ hardware could be in the form of physical modules that can be connected to the computer's ports (e.g., parallel, serial, Universal Serial Bus (USB), etc.), or cards connected to slots in the computer motherboard (e.g., S-100 bus (IEEE-696), AppleBus, Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), PCI Express (PCIe), etc. Examiner's note: Standardized PCIe slot on functioning motherboard always supplies baseline operational power)
wherein the equipment data collection unit and the equipment data processing unit are connected to each other via a serial communication interface and integrally combined with each other. (CHEN, [0005] DAQ hardware could be in the form of physical modules ... or cards connected to slots in the computer motherboard (e.g., S-100 bus (IEEE-696), AppleBus, Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), PCI Express (PCIe), etc.)
CHEN does not explicitly teach:
and perform real-time data determination on the diagnosis- targeted equipment' s data input from at least one of the plurality of input channels by using a diagnosis model corresponding to a relevant channel,
However, OH teaches:
and perform real-time data determination on the diagnosis- targeted equipment' s data input from at least one of the plurality of input channels by using a diagnosis model corresponding to a relevant channel, (OH, Fig. 1, 100->210, [0042] For example, the preprocessing unit 210 may convert the time series data into the frequency data (i.e., image data including a frequency and the time series characteristic) including the time series characteristic through a short time Fourier transform (STFT) or a waterfall fast Fourier transform (FFT). [0044] On the other hand, in the equipment diagnosis system 1000 according to the present embodiment, the preprocessing unit 210 may perform sampling on a relatively narrow range when using preprocessing that provides temporal information as well as frequency data, thereby preventing an increase in data size. Also, the preprocessing unit 210 may perform preprocessing based on a desired time interval (for example, an equipment operation time) to generate image data effective for deep learning.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine CHEN with preprocessing unit as taught by OH, to prevent increase in data size, or to generate image data effective for deep learning. (OH, [0044])
Regarding Claim 7, CHEN in view of OH teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the data input from the diagnosis-targeted equipment comprises at least one of speed data, vibration data, electric current data, and temperature data, which are obtained from the equipment. (OH, [0037] The DAQ unit 100 may acquire data (e.g., torque data and speed data of a motor in the equipment; internal/external vibration data, temperature data, atmospheric pressure data; pressure data of the equipment, slope data and current data of the equipment; and so forth) of the various equipment through a sensor and/or control unit 1500.)
Regarding Claim 8, CHEN in view of OH teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one or more individual boards are provided to be detachable. (CHEN, [0054] The timing mezzanine 316 may be operatively coupled to the main data acquisition card 300 by way of a plug and socket connection arrangement, or other removable connection mechanism that may be known by those skilled in the art, so that the timing mezzanine can be easily removed and swapped with a different timing mezzanine for flexible interfacing to various external timing systems with which the respective timing mezzanines are configured to operate.)
Regarding Claim 12,
The method of claim 12 performs the same method steps as the apparatus of claim 1, and claim 12 is therefore rejected using the same rationale set forth above in the rejection of claim 1
Claim(s) 2, 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHEN (US 20220100690 A1), in view of OH (US 20190302750 A1) and Hukill (US 20220327869 A1)
Regarding Claim 2, CHEN in view of OH does not explicitly teach:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the equipment data processing unit transmits the collected data to an external server,
However, Hukill teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the equipment data processing unit transmits the collected data to an external server, (Hukill, abstract, ...as well as a means for transmitting information to a remote server for analysis and tracking of the filter element information...)
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine CHEN in view of OH with sending data collected to remote server for analysis as taught by Hukill, because the remote server can utilize the global position of the filter element to access desired environmental parameters from an online database. [0010]
Regarding Claim 13,
The method of claim 13 performs the same method steps as the apparatus of claim 2, and claim 13 is therefore rejected using the same rationale set forth above in the rejection of claim 2
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHEN (US 20220100690 A1), in view of OH (US 20190302750 A1) and JEONG (US 20230307895 A1)
Regarding Claim 11, CHEN in view of OH does not explicitly teach:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the serial communication interface is configured to preform SPI communication.
However, JEONG teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the serial communication interface is configured to preform SPI communication. (JEONG, Fig. 4, SPI communication between 60 <-> 50)
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine CHEN in view of OH with SPI communication between input unit and controller as taught by JEONG, because although JEONG does not explicitly state the motivation for utilizing the illustrated SPI connection between electric signal input unit 60 and controller 50 ( configured to generate various meter function-related information by using real-time current signal data and voltage signal data), a PHOSITA would have been motivated to implement the SPI protocol because it's a well-known synchronous serial communication interface that requires only 4 wires. Choosing a SPI protocol minimizes the physical pin count on the microcontrollers and reduces the routing complexity on PCB compared to parallel buses, which is a standard design optimization goal in electronic circuits.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6, 9-10, 14-16 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Petersen (US 20220211277 A1): teaches data acquisition block implemented on a motherboard. And transmitting acquired data to a remote analysis engine ([0048])
HONG (US 20220252669 A1): teaches a data synchronous acquisition module which contains serially connected Data acquisition module and data analysis module (Fig. 4)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to XINYUAN YU whose telephone number is (571)272-7140. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:30-5:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bryce Bonzo can be reached at 571-272-3655. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/XINYUAN YU/Examiner, Art Unit 2113 /BRYCE P BONZO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2113
