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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11/26/2025 regarding claims 1 and 17 has been fully considered. The highlighted arguments are listed below and will be addressed accordingly.
Argument #1 (REMARKS, pages 7-8): Applicant asserts that claims 1 and 17 overcomes the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 because,
“The Office Action contends that Lewis discloses the above-recited elements of claim 1. (Office Action, p. 1). In particular, the Office Action cites to paragraph [0212] of Lewis, which recites: Satellite characteristics for an agricultural field are typically determined based on satellite maps.
Satellite image data may be provided at different spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions. The satellite maps may provide information about agricultural crop assessment, crop health, change detection, environmental analysis, irrigated landscape mapping, yield determination and soils analysis. The images may be acquired at different times of the year and multiple times within a year.
The above-recited elements discuss using satellite imagery to obtain characteristics for an
agricultural field, but make no mention of determining characteristics at the individual plant level
in the manner recited by the claims. Therefore, Lewis does not appear to disclose these elements
and the Office Action does not establish a prima facie case that each and every claim element is
disclosed by the cited references.
Applicant also notes that the Office Action merely relies on a general statement to reject claim 17 based on the rejection of claim 1. However, claims 1 and 17 include quite a few different limitations such that the analysis used to reject claim 1 is not appropriate or necessarily applicable to reject claim 17. Therefore the Office Action even further fails to establish a prima facie case of obviousness for claim 17 and its corresponding dependent claims.”
Examiner respectfully disagrees, and indicates that the cited Prior Art reasonably address limitations of the claimed invention. Applicant is reminded that Examiner will interpret each claim in the broadest reasonable sense, as such, the claims and only the claims form the metes and bounds of the invention.
The applicant has failed to produce evidence in the prior art that precludes the combination of Lewis and Weldemariam from carrying out the steps in claims 1 and 17. The Examiner notes that the claims state determining metrics for plants in a crop, “determining a plurality of sets of metrics corresponding to a crop disposed in the crop area based on the obtained crop data, respective sets of metrics corresponding to individual plants of the crop.” The Examiner interprets the claim language as plant type in a crop. Lewis does suggest the noted features by disclosing a field map that includes one or more sections with crop data that include crop identifiers and agricultural characteristics in paragraph 0046, and applying weight values of the different agricultural characteristics in paragraphs 0171. Also, Weldemariam discloses identification or extraction of features from photographic images of plants in a crop in paragraphs 0059-0060. The Examiner suggests the applicant clearly define the set of metrics in relation to “individual plants” and the weighting process.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-4, 6, 7, 9, 17-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lewis et al. (US 2020/0128721) in view of Weldemariam et al. (US 2020/0273172).
Regarding claim 1, Lewis teaches a system comprising:
data storage configured to store one or more of: one or more images corresponding to a crop area (see para. 0046, 0125, 0143, Lewis discusses capturing video and images of agricultural fields);
one or more videos corresponding to the crop area; or sensor data corresponding to the crop area (see para. 0046, 0125, 0143, Lewis discusses capturing video and images of agricultural fields); and
a computing system configured to perform operations, the operations comprising: obtaining, from the data storage, crop data related to the crop area the real time crop data being based on one or more of: the one or more images, the one or more videos, or the sensor data (see para. 0046-0047, Lewis discusses obtaining crop data from data server computer):
determining a plurality of sets of metrics corresponding to a crop disposed in the crop area based on the obtained crop data, respective sets of metrics corresponding to individual plants of the crop (see para. 0046, Lewis does suggest the noted features by disclosing a field map that includes one or more sections with crop data that include crop identifiers and agricultural characteristics; see para. 0212, Lewis discusses satellite image data providing agricultural crop assessment and crop health);
determining an overall crop health metric for the crop as a whole based on the plurality of sets of metrics in which different metrics respectively included in the sets of metrics are weighted differently in the determining of the overall crop health metric (see para. 0170-0171, Lewis discusses weight values of the different agricultural characteristics and unifying all the agricultural characteristics).
Lewis does not expressly disclose determining an overall crop care action for the crop as a whole based on the overall crop health metric, wherein a crop care system performs the overall crop care action as determined.
However, Weldermariam teaches determining a plurality of sets of metrics corresponding to a crop disposed in the crop area based on the obtained crop data, respective sets of metrics corresponding to individual plants of the crop (see para. 0059-0061, Weldermariam discusses identification or extraction of features from photographic images of plants in a crop);
determining an overall crop care action for the crop as a whole based on the overall crop health metric, wherein a crop care system performs the overall crop care action as determined (see para. 0010, Weldermariam discuses using visual analytics to determine the crop health status of a plant; see para. 0085, Weldermariam discusses action such as irrigation, triggered by a condition, such as the health or quality of the crop in relation to an expected health or quality level for the current stage of crop growth).
Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis with Weldemariam to derive at the invention of claim 1. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
The determination of obviousness is predicated upon the following: One skilled in the art would have been motivated to modify Lewis in this manner in order to improve agricultural crop analysis and management by extracting crop features from image data and analyzing the crop changes to properly perform take care of the crop. Furthermore, the prior art collectively includes each element claimed (though not all in the same reference), and one of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements in this manner explained using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a fundamental operating principle of Lewis, while the teaching of Weldemariam continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result of calculating the crop data over time periods to adequately perform crop care based on the extracted crop values. The Lewis and Weldemariam systems perform agricultural crop analysis, therefore one of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonable expectation of success in the combination. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Regarding claim 2, Weldermariam teaches wherein one or more individual metrics of one or more of the sets of metrics are determined based on one or more statuses of the corresponding individual plants (see para. 0048, 0054, 0073, Weldermariam discuses using visual analytics to determine the crop health status of an individual type of plant).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 2. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis with Weldemariam to derive at the invention of claim 2. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
Regarding claim 3, Weldemariam teaches wherein the one or more statuses include one or more of: a number of bugs present on the corresponding individual plants; a type of bugs present on the corresponding individual plants; conditions of blossoms of the corresponding individual plants; a ripeness amount of fruit of the corresponding individual plants; a color of the corresponding individual plants; a color of leaves of the corresponding individual plants; an amount of growth of the corresponding individual plants; a size of the corresponding individual plants; or a presence of crop diseases on the corresponding individual plants (see para. 0059, 0066, Weldemariam discusses feature analyzer detects and extracts a shape of the crop, identifies the rate of change of crop color, detects one or more spots on the crop and their patterns, and disease).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 3. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis with Weldemariam to derive at the invention of claim 3. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
Regarding claim 4, Weldemariam teaches wherein one or more individual crop care actions are determined for a particular individual plant based on one or more metrics of a particular set of metrics corresponding to the particular individual plant (see para. 0059, 0066, 0073, Weldemariam discusses feature analyzer detects and extracts a shape of the crop, identifies the rate of change of crop color, detects one or more spots on the crop and their patterns, and disease; see para. 0069, Weldemariam discusses actions recommended, triggered, and performed based on crop analysis).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 4. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis with Weldemariam to derive at the invention of claim 4. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
Regarding claim 6, Weldemariam teaches wherein the determining of the one or more metrics included in the plurality of sets of metrics is based on a comparison between crop data captured at different points in time (see para. 0065, 0086, Weldemariam discusses calculating the rate of change of the crop data over a time period).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 6. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis with Weldemariam to derive at the invention of claim 6. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
Regarding claim 7, Weldemariam teaches wherein the determining of the one or more metrics included in the plurality of sets of metrics includes predicting a future metric based on the crop data (see para. 0049, Weldemariam discusses predicting the quality of crops based on the historical data).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 7. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis with Weldemariam to derive at the invention of claim 7. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
Regarding claim 9, Weldemariam teaches wherein the operations further comprise causing an autonomous system to automatically perform the overall crop care action (see para. 0123, discusses generating instructions for controlling agricultural equipment to apply chemicals or fertilizers, harvesting the crop, and irrigating with the irrigation system, actions can be controlled or triggered via network adapter and/or I/0 interfaces).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 9. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis with Weldemariam to derive at the invention of claim 9. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
Claim 17 is rejected as applied to claim 1 as pertaining to a corresponding computer-readable storage media.
Claim 18 is rejected as applied to claim 2 as pertaining to a corresponding computer-readable storage media.
Claim 19 is rejected as applied to claim 4 as pertaining to a corresponding computer-readable storage media.
Regarding claim 20, Weldemariam teaches wherein the one or more metrics include one or more of: an irrigation rate; a water absorption rate; an amount of water being delivered; a broken irrigation line; a broken irrigation emitter; a broken irrigation sprinkler, a number of bugs present on the individual plant; a type of bugs present on the individual plant; conditions of blossoms of the individual plant; a ripeness amount of fruit of the individual plant; a color of fruit of the individual plant; a color of leaves of the individual plant; an amount of growth of the individual plant; a size of the individual plant; or a presence of crop diseases on the individual plant (see para. 0059, 0066, 0073, Weldemariam discusses feature analyzer detects and extracts a shape of the crop, identifies the rate of change of crop color, detects one or more spots on the crop and their patterns, and disease; see para. 0069, Weldemariam discusses actions recommended, triggered, and performed based on crop analysis).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 20. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis with Weldemariam to derive at the invention of claim 20. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
Regarding claim 21, Lewis teaches wherein the one or more individual metrics include a plurality of individual metrics and wherein the operations further comprise determining an aggregated individual crop health metric for the individual plant based on the plurality of individual metrics (see para. 0170-0171, Lewis discusses weight values of the different agricultural characteristics and unifying all the agricultural characteristics).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 21. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis with Weldemariam to derive at the invention of claim 21. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
Regarding claim 22, Weldemariam teaches wherein the operations further comprise: determining an overall crop health metric for the crop as a whole based on the one or more individual metrics corresponding to the individual plant and based on one or more of: one or more other individual metrics corresponding to one or more other individual plants of the crop; or one or more metrics corresponding to the crop area as a whole; and determining an overall crop care action for the crop as a whole based on the overall crop health metric (see para. 0059, 0066, 0073, Weldemariam discusses feature analyzer detects and extracts a shape of the crop, identifies the rate of change of crop color, detects one or more spots on the crop and their patterns, and disease; see para. 0069, Weldemariam discusses actions recommended, triggered, performed based on crop analysis).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 23. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis with Weldemariam to derive at the invention of claim 23. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lewis et al. (US 2020/0128721) in view of Weldemariam et al. (US 2020/0273172) in view of Shriver (US 2016/0239709); “Shriver II”.
Regarding claim 5, Lewis and Weldemariam do not expressly disclose wherein one or more of the one or more images, the one or more videos, or the sensor data is obtained using one or more sensors disposed on a machine that operates in the crop area. However, Shriver II teaches wherein one or more of the one or more images, the one or more videos, or the sensor data is obtained using one or more sensors disposed on a machine that operates in the crop area (see para. 0022, Shriver II discusses camera attached to a tractor operating on the crop field).
Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis and Weldemariam with Shriver II to derive at the invention of claim 5. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
The determination of obviousness is predicated upon the following: One skilled in the art would have been motivated to modify Lewis and Weldemariam in this manner in order to improve agricultural crop analysis and management by extracting crop features from image data using a machine’s installed camera, and analyzing the crop changes to properly perform take care of the crop. Furthermore, the prior art collectively includes each element claimed (though not all in the same reference), and one of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements in this manner explained using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a fundamental operating principle of Lewis and Weldemariam, while the teaching of Shriver II continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result of calculating the crop data from image data using a machine’s installed camera to adequately perform crop care based on the extracted crop values. The Lewis, Weldemariam, and Shriver II systems perform agricultural crop analysis, therefore one of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonable expectation of success in the combination. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lewis et al. (US 2020/0128721) in view of Weldemariam et al. (US 2020/0273172) in view of Shriver et al. (US 9,652,840).
Regarding claim 8, Lewis and Weldemariam do not expressly disclose wherein the operations further comprise generating a heat map with respect to the crop, the heat map indicating levels of one or more metrics included in the plurality of sets of metrics across the crop area. However, Shriver teaches wherein the operations further comprise generating a heat map with respect to the crop, the heat map indicating levels of one or more metrics included in the plurality of sets of metrics across the crop area (see col. 12 lines 42-47, Shriver discusses management zone module can output: analysis zones e.g., boundaries, coordinates, pixel identifiers, etc.; proxy maps e.g., yield proxy maps, vegetative performance value proxy maps, etc.; an expected crop parameter value for a given reference time).
Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Lewis and Weldemariam with Shriver to derive at the invention of claim 8. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform agricultural crop analysis and management.
The determination of obviousness is predicated upon the following: One skilled in the art would have been motivated to modify Lewis and Weldemariam in this manner in order to improve agricultural crop analysis and management by extracting crop features from image data using a machine’s installed camera, and analyzing the crop changes to properly perform take care of the crop. Furthermore, the prior art collectively includes each element claimed (though not all in the same reference), and one of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements in this manner explained using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a fundamental operating principle of Lewis and Weldemariam, while the teaching of Shriver continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result of calculating the crop data from image data using a machine’s installed camera to adequately perform crop care based on the extracted crop values. The Lewis, Weldemariam, and Shriver systems perform agricultural crop analysis, therefore one of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonable expectation of success in the combination. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KENNY A CESE whose telephone number is (571) 270-1896. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Friday, 9am – 4pm.
If attempts to reach the primary examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Gregory Morse can be reached on (571) 272-3838. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/Kenny A Cese/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2663