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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 4/14/2025 is/are being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Objections
Claim(s) 1 is/are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 recites “LIN communication”, “CAN communication”, “ECU”, and “control IC” which should be changed to -- Local Interconnect Network (LIN) --, -- Controller Area Network (CAN) --, -- Electronic Control Unit (ECU) --, and – control Integrated Circuit (IC) -- to clarify what the acronyms mean.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Pampattiwar (US 2022/0363186).
Claim 1: Pampattiwar discloses a vehicle interior lighting system that performs LIN communication or CAN communication (Control Area Network, see para [0172]), the vehicle interior lighting system comprising: a plurality of lamp units (115, fig. 2) connected by one or two bus cables (215, fig. 2); anda host ECU (120, fig. 2) that transmits an effect production instruction signal (405, fig. 4) to the plurality of lamp units (115) through the bus cable or cables (215), the effect production instruction signal (405, fig. 4) instructing a content of an effect (activate or deactivate, see para [0033]) produced by a light emission operation of the plurality of lamp units (215),wherein each of the plurality of lamp units (115, fig. 2) comprises a light-emitting element (205, 210, fig. 2) and a control IC (125, 130, fig. 2) that controls output of the light-emitting element (205, 210) according to the content of the effect production instruction signal (see para [0028]), and wherein the effect production instruction signal (emit … when activated, see para [0028]) is transmitted once to each of the plurality of lamp units (115) per effect production instruction, regardless of duration of effect (see para [0028]).
Claim 2: Pampattiwar discloses each time transmitting the effect production instruction signal, the host ECU combines only necessary pieces among a plurality of pieces of instruction information and includes the combination in the effect production instruction signal (120 capable of performing the function of combining necessary pieces of instruction information to activate the LEDs 205, 210 as stated in paragraph [0028]) .
Claim 3: Pampattiwar discloses when instruction information that specifies an operation of simultaneously changing outputs of the plurality of lamp units is included in the effect production instruction signal, timings at which the control ICs of the plurality of lamp units change outputs of the light-emitting elements are synchronized (control circuit 120 capable of simultaneously changing outputs of the lamp units 125 and 130 as stated in paragraph [0026] where the outputs of the LEDs 205 and 210 can synchronized, see para [0026] – [0028]).
Claim 4: Pampattiwar discloses each of the plurality of lamp units (125, 130, fig. 2) comprises a plurality of the light-emitting elements (205, 210, fig. 2).
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) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pampattiwar (US 2022/0363186) in view of Borgholthaus (US 2015/0321603).
Claim 5: Pampattiwar teaches the vehicle interior lighting system performs communication (wireless communications in para [0006] or power line communication see claim 41).
However, Pampattiwar fails to teach LIN communication; and the number of nodes of the plurality of lamp units is not less than 15.
Borgholthaus teaches a vehicle interior lighting system performs LIN communication (Local interconnect network, see para [0018]).
Therefore, in view of Borgholthaus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to substitute the communication protocol of Pampattiwar to a LIN communication, in order to improve communication speed.
A second embodiment of Pampattiwar teaches the number of nodes of the plurality of lamp units is not less than 15 (two or more nodes, see para [0173]).
Therefore, in view of A second embodiment of Pampattiwar, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include additional nodes of the plurality of lamp units to be not less than 15, in order to increase the brightness of the vehicle lighting system.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Zielinski et al. (US 2010/0052536), Ohashi et al. (US 2017/0118816) and Kreuter et al. (US 2019/0353336) disclose a similar lighting system.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHENG B SONG whose telephone number is (571)272-9402. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday: 9AM - 5PM.
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/ZHENG SONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2875