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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 11/11/25 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1, 3, 10, and 25-43 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Claims 1, 3, 10, and 25-43 are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite a mental process that can be performed by a human being, mathematical concepts, and/or claim training/employing a machine learning algorithm in a particular environment.
In regard to Claims 1 and 10, the following limitations can be performed as a mental process by a human being in terms of claiming collecting data, analyzing that data, and providing outputs based on that analysis which has been held by the CAFC to be an abstract idea in decisions such as, e.g., Electric Power Group, University of Florida Research Foundation, and Yousician v Ubisoft (non-precedential); claim mathematical concepts as outlined at MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(I), in terms of the Applicant claiming:
[a] method of operating a self-referential gaming table system comprising:
[receiving] captur[ed] image data of a gaming table [wherein there is] perspective distortion in the [received] image data;
determining […] that a physical change event has occurred by detecting a change between a first set of [dot] coordinates for a fiducial marker in previously-captured image data and a second set of [dot] coordinates for the fiducial marker in the captured image data, the physical change event comprising one or more of a movement of [an] image sensor, a movement of [a] projector, or a change in a layout on [a] planar playing surface;
in response to determining that the physical change event has occurred, […] performing a calibration sequence to generate a corrective mapping that compensates for the perspective distortion by analyzing the fiducial marker within the captured image data; and
in response to performing the calibration sequence, performing operations comprising:
determining, based on known chip dimensions (KCD) and a known distance of an object on the planar playing surface from the fiducial marker, an expected [dot]-width for a standard gaming chip at that distance; and
comparing a detected width of a base of the object to the expected [dot]-width;
wherein, if the detected width matches the expected [dot]-width within a predetermined tolerance,
the method further comprises performing a first additional sequence comprising:
classifying the object on the planar playing surface as a standard chip stack;
analyzing […] by using [an algorithm], the corrective mapping, and the KCD, the captured image data, to detect an identifying pattern on an edge of one or more gaming chips within the standard chip stack;
determining, […] based on the detected identifying pattern, a monetary value for each of the one or more gaming chips;
computing, […] a total monetary value for the standard chip stack; and
animating a first notification indicative of the computed total monetary value relative to the standard chip stack, wherein the animating the first notification comprises one or more of animating the total monetary value via an […] overlay in connection with an underlying image of a bet spot or [visual displaying] the total monetary value onto the planar playing surface at the bet spot: and
wherein, if the detected width fails to match the expected [dot]-width within the predetermined tolerance, the method further comprises performing a second additional sequence comprising:
classifying the object as not a standard chip stack; and
animating, relative to the object, a second notification indicating that the object is not a standard chip stack, wherein the animating the second notification comprises one or more of animating an alert via an […] overlay in connection with an underlying image of the object or [visually displaying] the alert onto the planar playing surface adjacent to the object.
In regard to Claims 1 and 10, Applicant claims training/employing a machine learning algorithm in a particular environment which has held by the CAFC to be abstract in, e.g., Recentive Analytics v. Fox Corp (2023-2437; 4/18/25), in terms of the Applicant claiming training/employing a machine-learning model in a particular technological environment.
In regard to the dependent claims, they also claim an abstract idea to the extent that they merely claim further limitations that likewise could be performed as a mental process by a human being, mathematical concepts, and/or claim training/employing a machine learning algorithm in a particular environment.
Furthermore, this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because to the extent that additional elements are claimed either alone or in combination such as, e.g., employing digital images comprised of pixels, a processor, an image sensor, a gaming table, a projector, training/employing a machine learning model, and/or employing augmented reality, these are merely claimed to add insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception (e.g., data gathering), to embody the abstract idea on a general purpose computer, and/or do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. In this regard, see MPEP 2106.04(d)(I) in regard to “courts have also identified limitations that did not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application…”
Furthermore, the claims do not include additional elements that taken individually, and also taken as an ordered combination, are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because to the extent that, e.g., employing digital images comprised of pixels, a processor, an image sensor, a gaming table, a projector, training/employing a machine learning model, and/or employing augmented reality, these are well-understood, routine, and conventional elements and are claimed for the well-understood, routine, and conventional functions of collecting and processing data and/or providing an analysis/outputs based on that processing. To the extent that an apparatus is claimed as an additional element said apparatus fails to qualify as a “particular machine” to the extent that it is claimed generally, merely implements the steps of Applicant’s claimed method, and is claimed merely for purposes of extra-solution activity or field of use. See MPEP 2106.05(b). As evidence that these additional elements are well-understood, routine, and conventional, Applicant’s specification discloses the support for these elements in a manner that indicates that the additional elements are sufficiently well-known that the specification does not need to describe the particulars of such additional elements to satisfy 35 U.S.C. § 112(a). See, e.g., F2 in Applicant’s PGPUB and text regarding same; e.g., p95-95 regarding training/employing an ML model; and/or, e.g., p98 regarding employing augmented reality.
Response to Arguments
All of Applicant’s claims have been rejected under 35 USC 101 under the Mayo test as claiming abstract ideas and without claiming “significantly more”. The Mayo test is a legal test and, as such, the question in regard to making such a rejection is what is the most analogous case law in terms of identifying whether an applicant has claimed patent eligible versus ineligible subject matter. To that end, the 101 rejections made supra cite legal authorities in regard to why the Applicant is alleged to have claimed patent ineligible subject matter under the Mayo test.
Applicant argues on page 16 of its Remarks in regard to the rejections made under 35 USC 101:
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Applicant’s argument is unpersuasive. Applicant cites no legal authority as to why its claimed invention directed to identifying whether a gambling chip appears or does not appear in an image to be patent eligible under the Mayo test. What Applicant’s claims are directed to collecting data (e.g., image data), analyzing that data (e.g., determining whether the image indicates evidence that movement has taken place, identifying an object in the image as being or not being a chip stack), and providing outputs based on that analysis (e.g., providing a differential visual display based on whether or not a stack of gaming chips were or were not identified in the image), and such subject matter has been repeatedly held by the CAFC to be patent ineligible as being directed to an abstract idea in the form of a mental process. See, e.g., the CAFC’s decisions in Electric Power Group and University of Florida Research Foundation. See also, e.g., the CAFC’s opinion in Yousician (non-precedential) in which the CAFC held to be patent ineligible an invention directed to collecting sensor data, comparing that data to a metric, and providing some different visual display based on that comparison. Yousician is thereby closely analogous to Applicant’s claimed invention given that both are directed to similar subject matter.
Applicant further argues in this regard on page 17 of its Remarks:
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Applicant’s argument is unpersuasive. Applicant cites no relevant legal authority that is allegedly more analogous to its claimed invention than the legal authority cited supra. What is more, it is unclear what is intended by Applicant’s argument in term of its alleged improvement to the accuracy and reliability of “computer vision and projection systems”. Applicant does not claim any limitations nor make any disclosure in regard to “computer vision” so it is unclear what is intended by the use of that phrase. At best, Applicant’s claimed invention appears to be directed to the analysis of images by a computer. The CAFC has held repeatedly, however, where claims directed to image analysis and manipulation by a computer are abstract and not patent eligible. See, e.g., the CAFC’s opinions in Hawk Technology Systems v. Castle Retail (2022-1222; 2/17/2023); Coffelt v. Nvidia Corporation (non-precedential; 2017-1119; 3/15/17); Longitude Licensing v. Google LLC (2024-1202; 4/30/25); Mobile Acuity v. Blippar (2022-2216; 8/6/24); Plotagraph v. Lightricks (non-precedential; 2023-1048; 1/22/24). It is unclear, then, why Applicant’s particular claimed invention in regard to analyzing images by a computer should not also be patent ineligible. What is more, Applicant does not claim any limitations in regard to alleged improvements to the accuracy and/or reliability of its claimed “projection system”. At best Applicant claims that a certain display is projected when a chip stack is identified in an image and another display is projected when a chip stack is not identified in that image. It is unclear how this would improve the accuracy and/or reliability of Applicant’s claimed “projector”, however, in any way in terms of Applicant’s invention does not, e.g., improve the precision with which the projector may perform images and/or or the amount of power it draws. Applicant further argues in this regard that its claimed invention is analogous to that of Enfish, however, Applicant does not claim anything analogous to an improvement to self-referential database technology and much more analogous legal authorities to Applicant’s invention have already been cited supra.
Applicant further argues in this regard on page 18 of its Remarks:
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Applicant’s argument is unpersuasive. The fact that an image taken from a certain perspective provides a human being an unrealistic perception of the depth of an object in that image is not a “problem for the machine”. Applicant’s claimed “processor” does not, e.g., operate any faster, use less power, or be able to be manufactured more cheaply as a result of Applicant’s invention. Applicant further argues in this regard on page 19 of its Remarks that its claimed invention is a “direct improvement to the computer’s security, reliability, and efficiency” because it provides one visual display when chips are identified and a different visual display when they are not, the latter thereby “prevent[ing] the machine from wasting resources analyzing invalid objects.” Applicant’s argument is unpersuasive because any conservation of “resources” here is merely an artifact of Applicant embodying its claimed abstract idea as a computer program that then does not execute for as long in some instances (chips are identified in the image) as opposed to others (chips are not identified in the image). This does not, however, generally improve Applicant’s claimed “processor” in terms of allowing it to run faster and/or use less power in regard to any computer program.
Applicant’s subsequent arguments in regard to Bascom are not persuasive for the same reasons. Applicant’s claimed invention is also not analogous to that of Thales because Applicant’s invention does not result in the improvement to the accuracy and/or precision of Applicant’s claimed “image sensor”.
Applicant argues that it has claimed a “practical application” and thereby claimed patent eligible subject matter under the Mayo test. Applicant’s argument is not persuasive. The Mayo test is a legal test and “practical application” is not part of the Mayo test but is, instead, a burden placed on examiners by the Office when they are making a 101 rejection employing the Mayo test. Simply invoking “practical application” but without citing specific legal authority in support of Applicant’s argument that it has claimed patent eligible subject matter under the two-part Mayo test, therefore, does not provide a proper basis or rationale as to why the 101 rejection being made is allegedly deficient. Applicant cites 101 Examples by the Office in regard to why it has allegedly claimed a “practical application”. It is unclear how to apply the 101 Examples provided by the Office given that the Mayo test is a legal test and Office cannot make law; the Examples themselves do not cite to and in some instances are inapposite of precedential legal authority; and as well because the Examples are not provided with specifications that would allow the BRI of the claimed limitations in question to be determined. What is more, Applicant’s claimed invention does not concern the relocation of icons on a graphical user interface nor a livestock sorting gate.
Applicant argues on page 22 that its claimed invention is analogous to that of McRO. Applicant’s argument is not persuasive because Applicant’s claimed invention does not concern an improvement to the computer animation of human faces.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is listed in the attached PTO-Form 892 and is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Mike Grant whose telephone number is 571-270-1545. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., except on the first Friday of each bi-week.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner's Supervisory Primary Examiner, Peter Vasat can be reached at 571-270-7625. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL C GRANT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715