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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 3/25/2026 has been entered.
Claims 1, 3, 4, 7-12 are pending, claims 2, 5-6, and 13-23 are cancelled, and claims 1 and 11 are amended.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1, 3, 4, and 7-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 and parallel claim 11 recite the limitation of “processing unit located at said retail establishment, said processing unit being configured to: receive outputs of said plurality of cameras;- for each customer entering said retail establishment:- analyze said outputs using at least one computer vision technique to determine representative characteristics of said customer;- generate metadata for said customer;- create a profile for said customer, said profile containing said representative characteristics and metadata about said customer, said profile comprising at least an image of said customer entering said retail establishment; and - storing said profile in a collection of profiles of customers who are still in said retail establishment;”, however no support for a processing unit located at the retail establishment that performs such functions is found in the specification. At most the specification recites a POS at the location but it does not receive inputs from the cameras or use computer vision techniques (see [0015]). A POS camera directed at the POS to capture images of the customers and data is correlated from the database is recited, but there is no recitation of a processing unit or a combination of the POS and camera as a single processing unit located at the retailer (see [0016]). At most the recited analysis module in the specification may be co- located as the cameras and/or database.
Furthermore, there are no recited “computer vision techniques” in the specification. [0013] discusses capturing the images of the customers, [0014] discusses analysis of the images at a high level with no specific technology recited as to the way the analysis is performed, but rather what is captured and what is determined to be in the images. At most, [0016] states that the images from the cameras are transmitted to the analysis module for image analysis.
It is noted in the remarks filed by applicant, [0013], [0016], and [0020] are cited as support for the amended language in the claims, however no such support is found for the above limitations. The above mentioned paragraph recite the steps and structure at a high level, but not the particulars now required by the amended claims as outlined above.
Dependent claims 3, 4, and 7-10, and 12 are also rejected under 35 USC 112(a) as they inherit the deficiencies of the independent claims 1 and 11 rejected above.
The examiner has given the claim limitations rejected above their plain meaning interpretation as best understood in light of the specification and under broadest reasonable interpretation.
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.
Step 1: The claims 1, 3, 4, 7-10 are a system, claims 11, 12 are a method, and claims 16-20 are a computer readable medium. Thus, each independent claim, on its face, is directed to one of the statutory categories of 35 U.S.C. §101. However, the claims 1, 3, 4, 7-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 2A Prong 1: The independent claims (1 and 11 taking claim 1 as a representative claim) recite:
A system for determining consumers of a specific item being sold in a retail establishment, the system comprising:
a plurality of cameras for capturing images of customers in said retail establishment,
with each of said images of customers being provided with a time stamp, at least one of said plurality of cameras being a first camera enabled to capture images of a point of sale terminal, at least one of said plurality of cameras being a second camera enabled to capture images of customers entering said retail establishment, at least one of said plurality of cameras being a third camera enabled to capture images of a specific area of said retail establishment, said specific area being an area where said specific item is displayed for sale, and a fourth camera enabled to capture images of customers leaving said retail establishment;
a database storing:
purchase data for said retail establishment detailing time of purchase and product identification numbers for specific products purchased at said retail establishment;
data relating to fixtures in said retail establishment;
-data relating to marketing materials at said retail establishment;
location data indicating where products are located in said retail establishment; and
a processing unit located at said retail establishment configured to:
receive outputs of said plurality of cameras;
for each customer entering said retail establishment:
analyze said outputs using at least one computer vision technique to determine representative characteristics of said customer;
generate metadata for said customer;
create a profile for said customer, said profile containing said representative characteristics and metadata about said customer, said profile comprising at least an image of said customer entering said retail establishment;
and storing said profile in a collection of profiles of customers who are still in said retail establishment;
determine locations of customers in said retail establishment by analyzing new images of customers;
assign said new images of customers to profiles of customers still in said retail establishment based on metadata in said profiles;
analyze images of customers leaving said retail establishment and removing removed profiles from said collection of profiles,
said removed profiles being profiles in said collection of profiles that have been assigned to images of customers that match images of customers leaving said retail establishment;
correlate at least one of said profiles in real-time with data from said database to thereby determine:
determine which customers are located in a specific area, said specific area being either an area where said specific item is displayed or an area where marketing material relating to said specific item is displayed;
retrieve purchase data and determine, from said purchase data, times of purchase for said specific item;
determine, based on said times of purchase and based on time stamps for images of customers at said point of sale terminal, corresponding imaged customers and profiles assigned to said imaged customers to thereby determine profiles of customers who have purchased said specific item;
generate at least one record that comprises demographic data of customers who have purchased said specific item, said at least one record being based on said profiles of customers who have purchased said specific item;
determine which of said customers who were in said specific area have purchased said specific item; and
generate a report based on said at least one record and on which of said customers who were in said specific area have purchased said specific item,
said report detailing demographics of customers who were exposed to said marketing material or to said specific item and who purchased said specific item and how many customers who were exposed to said marketing material or to said specific item purchased said specific item,
wherein at least one of said plurality of cameras is placed to capture images of customers entering said retail establishment;
at least one of said plurality of cameras is placed to capture images of at least one of said customers purchasing one of said products at said retail establishment;
reports for different products are generated and said reports are compared to determine which common customers are purchasing all of said different products;
said reports comprise reports generated for said specific product at different retail establishments, to thereby determine demographics of customers purchasing said specific product at different retail establishments;
and profiles of customers at said retail establishment are aggregated together to thereby determine a common profile for the majority of said retail establishment's customers.
These limitations, except for the italicized portions, under their broadest reasonable interpretations, recite certain methods of organizing human activity for managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions) as well as commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations). The claimed invention recites steps for gathering data about customers, purchases, demographics, and marketing effectiveness through the capture and analysis of images. The steps under its broadest reasonable interpretation specifically fall under sales activities. The Examiner notes that although the claim limitations are summarized, the analysis regarding subject matter eligibility considers the entirety of the claim and all of the claim elements individually, as a whole, and in ordered combination.
Prong 2: This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recite the additional elements of
A system
a plurality of cameras
at least one of said plurality of cameras being a first camera
at least one of said plurality of cameras being a second camera
at least one of said plurality of cameras being a third camera
and a fourth camera enabled
a database
a processing unit located as said retail establishment configured to:
analyze said outputs using at least one computer vision technique to determine representative characteristics of said customer;
wherein at least one of said plurality of cameras
at least one of said plurality of cameras is placed
The additional elements of emphasized above are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function of processing data) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The limitations do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and therefore do/does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application – MPEP 2106.05(f).
Accordingly, these additional elements when considered individually or as a whole do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The independent claims are directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B: The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed with respect to Step 2A Prong two, the additional elements in the claims amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exception using a generic computer component and generally linking the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
Even when considered as an ordered combination, the additional elements of claims 1 and 11 do not add anything that is not already present when they are considered individually. Therefore, under Step 2B, there are no meaningful limitations in claims 1 and 11 that transform the judicial exception into a patent eligible application such that the claims amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself (see MPEP 2106.05).
The analysis above also applies to independent claim 11 and it recites parallel claim language to claim 1.
As such, independent claims 1 and 11 are ineligible.
Dependent claims 3, 4, 7-10, 12 when analyzed as a whole, are held to be patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. §101 because the additional recited limitations fail to establish that the claims are not directed to the same abstract idea of Independent Claims 1 and 11 without significantly more.
Claim 3 recites wherein said outputs of said plurality of cameras are transmitted to said processing unit and said processing unit is physically remote from said retail establishment. The claim recites the additional element of the processing unit at a high level of generality and therefore does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Claim 4 recites wherein said demographic data is produced by said processing unit correlating said outputs of said plurality of cameras with said purchase data. The limitation merely further limits the abstract idea and does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Claim 7 recites wherein said outputs of said plurality of cameras are analyzed to determine how many customers purchased products from said retail establishment. The limitation merely further limits the abstract idea and does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Claim 8 recites wherein said outputs of said plurality of cameras are analyzed to enable tracking of at least one of said customers through said demographic data determined for said at least one of said customers. The limitation merely further limits the abstract idea and does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Claim 9 recites wherein said outputs of said plurality of cameras are correlated with said purchase data and said demographics of said at least one of said customers to determine which customer has purchased which products from said retail establishment. The limitation merely further limits the abstract idea and does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Claim 10 recites wherein said outputs of said plurality of cameras are correlated with said purchase data and contents of said database to determine an effectiveness of marketing material placement in said retail establishment. The limitation merely further limits the abstract idea and does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Claim 12 recites wherein said demographic data is used to label and track customers in said retail establishment. The limitation merely further limits the abstract idea and does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
For these reasons claims 1, 3, 4, 7-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Subject Matter Free of Prior Art
Claims 1 and 11 are determined to have overcome the prior art of rejection and are free of prior art, however the claims remain rejected under 35 USC 101, as set forth above. All dependent claims are also free of prior art by virtue of dependency, but remain rejected under 35 USC 101.
Taking amended claim 1 as a representative claim, the claims as amended are found to overcome the prior art rejection for the reasons set forth below.
Claim 1 now recites the additional claimed features of:
a database storing:
- purchase data for said retail establishment detailing time of purchase and product identification numbers for specific products purchased at said retail establishment;
- data relating to fixtures in said retail establishment;
- data relating to marketing materials at said retail establishment;
- location data indicating where products are located in said retail establishment; and
a processing unit located at said retail establishment, said processing unit being configured to:
profiles of customers at said retail establishment are aggregated together to thereby determine a common profile for the majority of said retail establishment's customers.
The closest prior art found was as follows:
Chan US 20190095443 discloses the use of sensors such as cameras within a retailer [0047] to capture images of a user and determine the user’s behavior, location, and ultimately a profile for the user while the user remains in the store ([0047, 0085, 0090, 0094 0127]). This is accomplished through image analysis on the collect set of images ([0089, 0094]). One manner in which this is done is [0002] Computer vision is an interdisciplinary field that aims for computers to analyze and extract, and interpret contents of images and videos. In other words, computer vision attempts to describe the reality (e.g., the identity of a person) based on analysis of one or more images. Computer vision is used widely for tasks such as optical character recognition (OCR), object recognition in retail industry, medical imaging, motion capture, and security (e.g., monitoring pools, highway traffic, etc.). Computer vision is further used for applications such as face detection and visual authentication for computer users. It is further of note that Chan discloses a retailer backend office that may have storage located on the premises of the retailer (0031 and 0114) for the above analysis. However, the reference does not disclose all of the claimed invention, in particular a database storing:- purchase data for said retail establishment detailing time of purchase and product identification numbers for specific products purchased at said retail establishment;- data relating to fixtures in said retail establishment;- data relating to marketing materials at said retail establishment;- location data indicating where products are located in said retail establishment; and profiles of customers at said retail establishment are aggregated together to thereby determine a common profile for the majority of said retail establishment's customers. However, it is noted that some of the features discussed above are subject to the rejection under 35 USC 112(a).
Sharma US 11615430 discloses determining the effectiveness of product placement within a store by capturing the shopper’s engagement with the product. For example [Figure 14] FIG. 14 shows an exemplary shopper interaction with one of the merchandise locations, such as “location 3” 133 and “location 4” 134, for a product, such as a shampoo product, in which the interaction measurement by the present invention can be used to evaluate the location effectiveness. In this exemplary shopper interaction configuration, the product is merchandised in two different display locations, i.e., “location 3” 133 and “location 4” 134, in a retail store. In this case, the shopper interacts with both of the display locations for the product. The shopper spends some time looking at the product in the display location, “location 4” 134, but does not make a purchase from there. Instead, the shopper travels to the other product display location, “location 3” 133, and after spending some time interacting with the product makes a purchase from this location. This evaluation indicates the different types of behavior exhibited in front of both of the locations to determine the effectiveness of each location in influencing shopper behavior. The present invention can also rank the effectiveness of each location in instances like this, where a similar product is merchandised in more than one location within a store. However, Sharma does not disclose all of the claimed invention, in particular the nature of generating the profiles, such as a processing unit located at said retail establishment, said processing unit being configured to; profiles of customers at said retail establishment are aggregated together to thereby determine a common profile for the majority of said retail establishment's customers, as required by the claimed invention. However, it is noted that some of the features discussed above are subject to the rejection under 35 USC 112(a).
“Video Analytics for Retail” (NPL) discloses a plurality of cameras tracking users in a retailer and producing images with timestamp information (see Figures 2 and 3). Further the reference discloses capturing information such as the time and SKU information for purchases and storing the information with a customer information (see Figure 4). However, the reference does not disclose all of the claimed invention, in particular the nature of generating the profiles, such as a processing unit located at said retail establishment, said processing unit being configured to; profiles of customers at said retail establishment are aggregated together to thereby determine a common profile for the majority of said retail establishment's customers, as required by the claimed invention. However, it is noted that some of the features discussed above are subject to the rejection under 35 USC 112(a).
Sorensen US 20160247219 discloses in [0027] “if the overall shopper demographic in the store overwhelmingly prefers pasta product A, then pasta product A may be preferentially included in the subset of products.” The reference determines the overall demographic of a store and then provides marketing based on that overall determination. However, the reference does not provide the detailing of the image capturing and image analysis to generate the profiles as required in the claimed invention. The manner for determining the profiling is completed by position sensors and functions such as scanning QR codes (see for example [0021]).
Wilkinson US 20180025365 discloses in [0198] a system for store management, comprising: a customer profile database storing customer partiality vectors, comprising customer value vectors, associated with a plurality of customers, a product database storing vectorized product characterizations associated with a plurality of products, a distribution system, and a control circuit coupled to the customer profile database, the product database, and the distribution system. The control circuit being configured to: select a plurality of customer profiles associated with a store location from the customer profile database, aggregate a plurality of customer value vectors associated with the plurality of customer profiles to determine aggregated store customer value vectors, determine alignments between the aggregated store customer value vectors and vectorized product characterizations associated with the plurality of products stored in the product database, select one or more products to stock at the store location based on the alignments, and instruct the distribution system to transport the one or more products the store location according to the one or more products selected for the store location. While the reference disclosing aggregate customer profiles to determine an aggregate customer and then use the information for product placement, the manner for collecting the information to aggregate the customer profile is pulled from a plurality of sources (see Figure 5) and not by the image tracking analysis required in the claimed invention.
It was found that no references alone or in combination, neither anticipates, reasonable teaches, nor renders obvious the below noted features of Applicant’s invention. The features of claim 1 (and parallel claim 11) in combination that overcome the prior art are:
a database storing:
- purchase data for said retail establishment detailing time of purchase and product identification numbers for specific products purchased at said retail establishment;
- data relating to fixtures in said retail establishment;
- data relating to marketing materials at said retail establishment;
- location data indicating where products are located in said retail establishment;
a processing unit located at said retail establishment, said processing unit being configured to:
profiles of customers at said retail establishment are aggregated together to thereby determine a common profile for the majority of said retail establishment's customers.
Therefore, none of the cited references disclose or render obvious each and every feature of the claimed invention and the claimed invention is determined to be free of the prior art. Although individually the claimed features could be taught, any combination of references would teach the claimed limitations using a piecemeal analysis, since references would only be combined and deemed obvious based on knowledge gleaned from the applicant's disclosure. Such a reconstruction is improper (i.e., hindsight reasoning). See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971). The examiner emphasizes that it is the interrelationship of the limitations that renders these claims free of the prior art/additional art.
It is noted that these limitations have overcome the prior art rejection in combination of viewing the claim as a whole. Individually, these limitations could be taught by a combination of a plurality of references, but when viewed as a whole would be a piecemeal reconstruction of applicant’s claimed invention. Further, noted however, is that subject matter recited in the claims and in particular subject matter free of prior art is subject to a rejection under 35 USC 112(a).
Therefore, it is hereby asserted by the Examiner that, in light of the above, that the claims are free of prior art as the references do not anticipate the claims and do not render obvious any further modification of the references to a person of ordinary skill in art.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 3/25/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive for the reasons set forth below.
With respect to the rejection under 35 USC 101, the examiner does not find the remarks to be persuasive. The location of the processing unit being on the premises rather than in the cloud is a design choice and such design choice reduces the need for transmitting the data to a cloud and consequentially requires less bandwidth. Here, already available technology is being used in its already basic functions as a tool to execute the abstract idea [SAP Am., 898 F.3d at 1169–70]. While the placement of the processing unit at the retail establishment may reduce the bandwidth it is accomplished in such a way that is not a technical solution to a technical problem, but rather merely consequential to the arrangement of the computer elements. Further the same is concluded for the then consequential rea-time processing of the images of the customer. The removal of the processing to a cloud and the data remaining on the premises results in less bandwidth due to the design choice, not an improvement to the technology itself. The arrangement of the technical components does not improve the technology itself.
Examiner notes that the fact patterns of the instant case are different from those set forth in Ex Parte Desjardins, and different fact patterns may have different eligibility outcomes. In Ex Parte Desjardins, the claimed invention was a method of training a machine learning model on a series of tasks, and technical improvements as a result of the model training were identified as reduced storage, reduced system complexity, and preservation of performance attributes associated with earlier tasks during subsequent computational tasks. While the ARP in Ex Parte Desjardins determined that these improvements were sufficient to reverse the 101 rejection of the claims at hand in Ex Parte Desjardins, analogous improvements are not apparent in the instant claims. Furthermore, as discussed below, neither Applicant’s specification nor the instant claims set forth analogous improvements. Accordingly, under the analysis set forth according to the MPEP, discussed below, the amended claims stand as ineligible.
As to the USPTO Memo of August 4, 2025, the examiner asserts that the claims are still rejected under 35 USC 101 and does not fall into the more likely than not when considering patent subject matter eligibility.
For at least these reasons the claims remain rejected under 35 USC 101 and 103.
Relevant Art Not Cited
LaCroix US 20140362223 discloses a plurality of video cameras capturing data about a customer interacting with a display and providing and advertising message associated with the display and/or interaction with the product.
PYDYNOWSKI US 20180075468 discloses [0022] Disclosed tool embodiments may operate upon aggregated data relating to customers, which may be categorized and filtered by age, gender, transaction frequency, location frequency, or consumer engagement level (e.g., level of spending, number of purchased items per visit, etc.), among other demographics. Disclosed tool embodiments may further operate upon aggregated data relating to merchants, which may be categorized and filtered by merchant name, industry, industry sub-category, new or existing locations, etc. Disclosed tool embodiments may further operate upon aggregated data relating to individual transactions, which may be categorized and filtered by time of day, day of week, and purchase channel, among other transaction attributes.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VICTORIA E. FRUNZI whose telephone number is (571)270-1031. The examiner can normally be reached Monday- Friday 7-4 (EST).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Marissa Thein can be reached at (571) 272-6764. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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VICTORIA E. FRUNZI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit TC 3689
/VICTORIA E. FRUNZI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3689 4/30/2026
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