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＜知的財産翻訳検定【第 6 回<和文英訳>試験】＞答案用紙★★★

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受験番号：06IPL006
科

目：：「知財法務実務」==================================================================We received a First Office Action with respect to the present application.
We here inform you a brief summary of the Office Action. The claimed invention relates
to a flash control of a camera and method of flash control.
The control as claimed automatically adjusts the aperture of lenses in response to light
condition in the environment while holding the shutter speed constant withinpredetermined limits.
Claim 1-4 are apparatus claims and claim 5-8 are method claims corresponding to theapparatus claims.
The Examiner rejects claims 1-8 as not being novel over U.S. Patent 6543210 toNakamura.
He also rejects claims 1-8 as not having inventive steps over combination of Nakamura
and Kilby.
He further rejects claims 1-8 as not having appropriate supports in the specification andas being indefinite.
[Rejection of Lack of Novelty]
The Examiner asserts that the claimed invention is not novel over Nakamura.
Especially, the Examiner asserts that the recitation of claim 1, an apparatus claim
relating to a flash control of a camera, “the control controls the drive unit such that theaperture of the lenses is adjusted to a predetermined condition while maintaining apredetermined shutter speed” is a functional description relating to a desired use oruncertain future operation.

He says that the above recitation of claim 1 has nopatentable weight because it cannot distinguish the apparatus as claimed from theapparatus disclosed in Nakamura in its structure.
We reviewed the rejection of lack of novelty briefly as follows: It seems difficult
to us to argue that the Examiner is misunderstanding the cited prior art or features of
the claimed invention.

However, it will be possible to overcome the rejection byincorporating the limitations of dependent claims 2-4 and 6-8 into independent claims 1and 5, respectively.

As you know, such amendment will limit the scopes of the claims.

Furthermore, there is another concern that the validity of equivalents of the limiting
features may be controversial in the future. Please let us know how you would like usto proceed.
[Rejection of Lack of Inventive Step]
The Examiner rejects claims 1-8 as not having inventive steps over thecombination of Nakamura and Kilby, that is, as being obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art from the combination.

Especially, the Examiner points out that it would havebeen obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the exposure control andmethod of Nakamura and the automatic exposure control of Kilby to reach the claimed
invention.

However, no suggestions to combine Nakamura and Kilby could be found.

Moreover, we think that applying of keeping the shutter speed constant to the flash
control surpasses the use of prior art elements according to their established functions
in a predictable manner.

Please let us know how you would like us to proceed.

[Rejection of Lack of Support and Indistinctness]
The Examiner rejects claims 1-8 as not being supported by the specification
appropriately and as being indefinite.

Especially, the Examiner asserts that thestructure and operation of the flash control and method of flash control are not distinct.
There are two ways for replying to this rejection.

The first way is to maintainthe present claims without any amendments and argue that the recitations of theclaims are thought to be distinct in view of the technical standard at the time of filingthe application. An alternative way is to amend the claims to more clearly recite thatthe control automatically adjusts the size of the aperture of lenses according to the lightlevel in the environment while holding the shutter speed constant as described in page17, line 7-24 of the specification and illustrated in Figs. 2 and 3.
shown below.

A draft of the claims is

Please let us know how you would like us to proceed.