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
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 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 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Delic et al. (WO2019/060942, hereinafter Delic).
Re claim 1, Delic discloses, an imaging sensor system comprising: at least one light source (par [0104], 1010); and a plurality of pixel sensors (par [0050], fig 1A) grouped in at least one local cluster comprising at least two pixel sensors, wherein the pixel sensors in the at least one local cluster are adjacent to at least one other pixel sensor in the at least one local cluster (pars [0058]-[0060], fig 2); wherein each pixel sensor comprises: a photodetector configured to detect a single photon impinging thereon and output a local detection signal upon detecting the single photon (pars [0049], [0055], fig 1A, 1C), a local controlling circuit comprising: a local activation circuit; and a neighborhood activation circuit connected to the local activation circuit,
wherein the plurality of pixel sensors in the at least one local cluster are configured, using the local controlling circuit, to output a global detection signal when detecting the local detection signals from at least two outputs of the photodetectors of the at least one local cluster (pars [0055], [0063]-[0064], figs 1C, 2B); wherein the local detection signal of the pixel sensor is supplied to the local activation circuit of the pixel sensor (inherent); wherein at least one local detection signal of at least one other pixel sensor in the at least one local cluster is supplied to the neighbor activation circuit of the at least one other pixel sensor (pars [0063]-[0069], figs 2B, 2C, 3A, 3B).
Re claim 20, Delic discloses the limitations of claim 1 including wherein each pixel sensor is associated with a plurality of local clusters (figs 2A, 2B).
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) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Delic as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Dutton (US 2020/0278247, hereinafter Dutton).
Re claim 2, Delic discloses the limitations of claim 1 but fails to explicitly disclose limitations which are disclosed by Dutton as follows: wherein the plurality of pixel sensors are configured to output the global detection signal when both the local activation circuit and the neighbor activation circuit are triggered (pars [0054]-[0057], fig 4).
One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to combine wherein the plurality of pixel sensors are configured to output the global detection signal when both the local activation circuit and the neighbor activation circuit are triggered of Dutton with the system of Delic in order to control which one of said rows is activated and column control circuitry to control which of said pixels in said activated row is to be activated.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-19 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.
Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOEL W FOSSELMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-3728. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 - 5:00 M-F.
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/JOEL W FOSSELMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2639
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