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`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`
`UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
`United States Patent and Trademark Office
`Address: COMIVHSSIONER FOR PATENTS
`P.O. Box 1450
`Alexandria1 Virginia 22313-1450
`www.uspto.gov
`
`
`
`
`
`14/414,167
`
`01/12/2015
`
`Toshihiro Matsumoto
`
`MAT—10642Us
`
`2406
`
`01/25/2018 —RATNERPRESTIA m
`
`7590
`52473
`
`BOUZIANE’ SA )
`2200 RENAISSANCE BLVD
`SUITE 350
`KING OF PRUSSIA, PA 19406
`
`PAPER NUMBER
`
`2837
`
`NOTIFICATION DATE
`
`DELIVERY MODE
`
`01/25/2018
`
`ELECTRONIC
`
`Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
`
`The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
`
`Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above—indicated "Notification Date" to the
`following e—mail address(es):
`
`pcorrespondence @ratnerprestia.c0m
`
`PTOL—90A (Rev. 04/07)
`
`

`

`Advisory Action
`Before the Filing of an Appeal Brief
`
`Application No.
`14/414,167
`Examiner
`SAID BOUZIANE
`
`Applicant(s)
`MATSUMOTO, TOSHIHIRO
`Art Unit
`A|A(First Inventor to File) Status
`2837
`No
`
`--The MAILING DA TE of this communication appears on the cover sheet with the correspondence address --
`THE REPLY FILED 11 December 2017 FAILS TO PLACE THIS APPLICATION IN CONDITION FOR ALLOWANCE.
`NO NOTICE OF APPEAL FILED
`
`1. E The reply was filed after a final rejection. No Notice of Appeal has been filed. To avoid abandonment of this application, applicant must timely file one
`of the following replies: (1) an amendment, affidavit, or other evidence, which places the application in condition for allowance;
`(2) a Notice of Appeal (with appeal fee) in compliance with 37 CFR 41.31 ; or (3) a Request for Continued Examination (RCE) in compliance with 37
`CFR 1.114 if this is a utility or plant application. Note that RCEs are not permitted in design applications. The reply must be filed within one of the
`following time periods:
`The period for reply expires gmonths from the mailing date of the final rejection.
`The period for reply expires on: (1) the mailing date of this Advisory Action; or (2) the date set forth in the final rejection, whichever is later.
`no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of the final rejection.
`A prior Advisory Action was mailed more than 3 months after the mailing date of the final rejection in response to a first after-final reply filed
`within 2 months of the mailing date of the final rejection. The current period for reply expires
`months from the mailing date of
`the prior Advisory Action or SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of the final rejection, whichever is earlier.
`Examiner Note: If box 1 is checked, check either box (
`), (b) or (c). ONLY CHECK BOX (b) WHEN THIS ADVISORY ACTION IS THE
`FIRST RESPONSE TO APPLICANT‘S FIRST AFTER-FINAL REPLY WHICH WAS FILED WITHIN TWO MONTHS OF THE FINAL
`REJECTION. ONLY CHECK BOX (c) IN THE LIMITED SITUATION SET FORTH UNDER BOX (c). See MPEP 706.07(f).
`Extensions of time may be obtained under 37 CFR 1.136(a). The date on which the petition under 37 CFR 1.136(a) and the appropriate extension
`fee have been filed is the date for purposes of determining the period of extension and the corresponding amount of the fee. The appropriate
`extension fee under 37 CFR 1.17(a) is calculated from: (1) the expiration date of the shortened statutory period for reply originally set in the final
`Office action; or (2) as set forth in (b) or (0) above, if checked. Any reply received by the Office later than three months after the mailing date of the
`final rejection, even if timely filed, may reduce any earned patent term adjustment. See 37 CFR 1.704(b).
`NOTICE OF APPEAL
`
`In
`
`. A brief in compliance with 37 CFR 41.37 must be filed within two months of the date of filing the
`2. D The Notice of Appeal was filed on
`Notice of Appeal (37 CFR 41 .37(a)), or any extension thereof (37 CFR 41 .37(e)), to avoid dismissal of the appeal. Since a Notice of Appeal
`has been filed, any reply must be filed within the time period set forth in 37 CFR 41 .37( ).
`AMENDMENTS
`
`3. D The proposed amendments filed after a final rejection, but prior to the date of filing a brief, will n_ot be entered because
`a) D They raise new issues that would require further consideration and/or search (see NOTE below);
`b) D They raise the issue of new matter (see NOTE below);
`c) D They are not deemed to place the application in better form for appeal by materially reducing or simplifying the issues for
`appeal; and/or
`d) D They present additional claims without canceling a corresponding number of finally rejected claims.
`NOTE:
`. (See 37 CFR 1.116 and 41 .33( )).
`4. D The amendments are not in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121. See attached Notice of Non-Compliant Amendment (PTOL-324).
`5. D Applicant’s reply has overcome the following rejection(s):
`6. D Newly proposed or amended claim(s) _would be allowable if submitted in a separate, timely filed amendment canceling the non-
`allowable claim( ).
`7. D For purposes of appeal, the proposed amendment(s): (a) [I will not be entered, or (b) [I will be entered, and an explanation of how the
`new or amended claims would be rejected is provided below or appended.
`AFFIDAVIT OR OTHER EVIDENCE
`
`8. D A declaration(s)/affidavit(s) under 37 CFR 1.130(b) was/were filed on
`9. [I The affidavit or other evidence filed after final action, but before or on the date of filing a Notice of Appeal will n_ot be entered because
`applicant failed to provide a showing of good and sufficient reasons why the affidavit or other evidence is necessary and was not earlier
`presented. See 37 CFR 1.116( ).
`10. [I The affidavit or other evidence filed after the date of filing the Notice of Appeal, but prior to the date of filing a brief, will n_ot be entered
`because the affidavit or other evidence failed to overcome a_|| rejections under appeal and/or appellant fails to provide a showing of good and
`sufficient reasons why it is necessary and was not earlier presented. See 37 CFR 41 .33(d)(1).
`1 1. [I The affidavit or other evidence is entered. An explanation of the status of the claims after entry is below or attached.
`REQUEST FOR RECONSIDERATION/OTHER
`
`12. IX The request for reconsideration has been considered but does NOT place the application in condition for allowance because:
`see continuation page.
`13. El Note the attached Information Disclosure Statement(s). (PTO/SB/08) Paper No( ).
`14. El Other:
`.
`STATUS OF CLAIMS
`
`
`
`15. The status of the claim(s) is (or will be) as follows:
`Claim(s) allowed:
`Claim(s) objected to:
`Claim(s) rejected: 1-2.
`Claim(s) withdrawn from consideration:
`
`/Eduardo Colon Santana/
`Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2837
`US. Patent and Trademark Office
`PTOL-303 (Rev. 08-2013)
`
`/Said Bouziane/
`Examiner, Art Unit 2837
`
`Advisory Action Before the Filing of an Appeal Brief
`
`Part of Paper No. 20180109
`
`

`

`Continuation Sheet (PTOL-303)
`
`Application No.
`
`Note: Response to Arguments
`Applicant‘s arguments filed 12/11/2017 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
`Applicant submitted that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that voltage/current values are merely numbers. These
`-
`numbers are normalized into the same ranges, and therefore can be compared to one another. Examiner disagrees; Claim 1 recites a first
`range of voltage values and a second range of current values, wherein “the second range is the same as the first range.” It’s unclear how
`two values of two different parameters of two different physical proprieties are supposed to be the same. Current is a parameter with
`different properties than voltage, they cannot be the same even when they have the same values (4 volt is different than 4 amp). For
`instance, distance and mass are two different parameters, so it cannot be said that five miles have the same value as five pound.
`Consequently, the limitation “the second range [current] is the same as the first range[voltage]” used in claim 1
`is vague and unclear and
`leaves the reader in doubt as to the meaning of the technical feature to which it refers, thereby rendering the definition of the subject-matter
`of said claim unclear.
`
`In response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner
`-
`recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention
`where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally
`available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21
`USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007).
`In this case, Nishino
`discloses a motor current detector configured to detect a current flowing through the driving coils (24) and a motor voltage detector
`configured to detect a voltage applied to the driving coils (25). However, Nishino does not explicitly teach wherein current detector and
`voltage detector output normalized values of the current and voltage and the normalizing treatment of the detected voltage/current
`including multiplying the detected voltage/current by a predetermined voltage/current coefficient to normalize the motor. voltage value
`within a first range of values the motor current value within a second range of values; so that the second range is the same as the first
`range. While Nishino is silence with regard to the types of values the current/voltage detectors are outputting and comparing at latter steps.
`Normalization is a well-known technique in data analysis used to normalize two or more distributions to each other. On the same field of
`endeavor, Holling teaches the normalization technique (Fig. 1,30) is performed to remove various extraneous factors which significantly
`affect the rate of change of the current (dI/dt) or voltage (dV/dt) flowing within the motor windings. Furthermore, Oyobe teaches steps of
`normalizing current or voltage depicted in Fig. 21; wherein Mean value operating unit 404 calculates a mean value of the magnitude of
`current Uc from current sensor 86, in the similar manner as mean value operating unit 402 which integrates the absolute value of detected
`current Uc for 1 period or several periods, divide the integrated value by the number of samplings, and multiply the result by a coefficient, to
`find the normalized value of detected current Uc (Oyobe, % [0157]—[0163]), wherein the technique described here uses the normalized
`correlation coefficient. The coefficient is arbitrary selected in order to develop a cross correlation between the two detected parameters.
`Hence, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention, to modify the invention of Nishino with
`the teaching of Holling and Oyobe to implement normalization technique in order to normalize the output of the current/voltage detectors;
`therefore, providing improved signal integrity for current/voltage detector circuits. As a result, the significant variations in current and
`voltage rate of change that normally result from fluctuations in bus voltage and motor speed are eliminated. For all that, one with ordinary
`skill in the art would be motivated to compare the normalized motor voltage value with the normalized motor current value instead of
`comparing the detected motor voltage value with the detected motor current value as taught in Nishino “FIG. 3 is a characteristic diagram
`corresponding to that of FIG. 11 and shows motor current (IM)-versus-motor voltage (VM) characteristics in the state in which the DC motor
`11 is driven in the second motor drive mode in which both the FETs of each pair are controlled by the PWM control signals” (Nishino,
`column 12, lines 19-24. the CPU 20A inputted with normalized motor voltage and normalized motor current as shown in Fig. 10, and
`generating on the basis of these input signals the motor driving signal DM indicating duty ratios of the PWM control signals PCI to P04
`mentioned previously for effectuating the PWM control of the FETs constituting the bridge commutation circuit BR (Nishino, column 9, lines
`65-68), reads on the correlation detector recited in the claim. In addition, the coefficient is arbitrary selected in order to develop a cross
`correlation between the two detected parameters, so it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to set a coefficient that
`make the range of normalized current values be easily compared to a range of normalized voltage values in order to determine a cross
`correlation between the two detected parameters.
`
`/SB/
`
`