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 .
Claims in Consideration
Claims 10-14, 16-18, are cancelled.
Claims 1-9, 15, and 19, are pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 6/26/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Argument: The applicant alleges that neither Kim nor Lee, does not provide anything about “wherein the identification information and the image of the obstacle are stored correspondingly to each other by the cleaning machine in an obstacle image database”.
Response: Applicant's arguments filed 6/26/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
While the examine concurs that Kim does not teach this limitation, the examiner would point to Lee, par. 0089, which does teach this limitation in that it describes storing image data with identification data in a database.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 9/16/2025, were filed before the final office action. The submissions are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejection Notes
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 1-5, and 15, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim (US 20160144512 A1, published: 5/26/2016), in view of Lee et al. (US 20200218274 A1, published: 7/9/2020).
Claim 1. (currently amended): Kim teaches an image-viewing method, applied to a terminal, wherein a client for a cleaning machine is installed on the terminal (a remote control, a terminal, etc. [Kim, 0024]), and the image-viewing method comprises:
receiving, by the client (detected by the control unit 200 [Kim, 0025]), an operation instruction for viewing an obstacle from a user (a control command may be input by a user directly to the robot cleaner through the input unit 300 [Kim, 0023]. The output unit 400 may display, on the display, external detection information, obstacle information, position information, a cleaning region, a cleaning map, etc. that are detected by the control unit 200 [Kim, 0025]);
sending, in response to the operation instruction, a request to view the obstacle to the cleaning machine, wherein the request carries identification information (the output unit 400 may be installed at the upper part of the robot cleaner. The output unit 400 may display, on the display, external detection information, obstacle information, position information, a cleaning region, a cleaning map, etc. that are detected by the control unit 200 [Kim, 0025]; Examiner's Note: wherein the cleaning machine vies obstacles external to said cleaning machine);
receiving an image of the obstacle identified by the identification information from the cleaning machine (the output unit 400 may be installed at the upper part of the robot cleaner. The output unit 400 may display, on the display, external detection information, obstacle information, position information, a cleaning region, a cleaning map, etc. that are detected by the control unit 200 [Kim, 0025]); and
controlling, by the client, display of the image of the obstacle (the output unit 400 may display, on the display, external detection information, obstacle information, position information, a cleaning region, a cleaning map, etc. that are detected by the control unit 200 [Kim, 0025]).
Kim does not teach an operation instruction in a cleaning map displayed by the client for viewing an obstacle from a user; and the identification information is used to uniquely identify the obstacle; wherein the identification information and the image of the obstacle are stored correspondingly to each other by the cleaning machine in an obstacle image database.
However, Lee teaches an operation instruction in a cleaning map displayed by the client for viewing an obstacle from a user (an obstacle sensor [Lee, 0072]. The robotic cleaning apparatus 1000 may generate basic map data. The robotic cleaning apparatus 1000 may generate the basic map data using a reference map and sensed data [Lee, 0073]; Examiner's Note: including the sensed data that would include obstacles); and the identification information is used to uniquely identify the obstacle; wherein the identification information and the image of the obstacle are stored correspondingly to each other by the cleaning machine in an obstacle image database (referring to FIG. 8, object identification data generated from an object image may be generated in the form of an object identification table. The object identification table may store a type of an object, coordinates indicating a border box of the object, reliability of the coordinates, and information about the time of capturing an object image of the object [Lee, 0089, FIG. 8]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the obstacle detection of a cleaning machine invention of Kim to include the cleaning map feature of Lee.
One would have been motivated to make this modification because a robotic cleaning apparatus needs to generate accurate map data of a cleaning space by determining identification values of divided regions of the cleaning space, and needs to be effectively controlled based on the generated map data (Lee, 0007).
Claims 4 and 15, having similar elements to claim 1, are likewise rejected.
Claim 2. (previously presented): The combination of Kim and Lee, teaches the image-viewing method according to claim 1. The combination further teaches wherein the receiving, by the client, of the operation instruction in the cleaning map for viewing the obstacle from the user comprises: receiving, by the client, a click-operation instruction on an icon corresponding to the obstacle in the cleaning map from the user; or receiving, by the client, a touch-operation instruction on an icon corresponding to the obstacle in the cleaning map from the user (the input unit 300 is a hard key, soft key, touch pad, etc. and may be installed at an upper part of the robot cleaner. Also, the input unit 300 may be in the form of a touch screen along with the output unit 300 [Kim, 0024]; [Lee, 0073]).
Claim 3. (previously presented): The combination of Kim and Lee, teaches the image-viewing method according to claim 1. Kim further teaches wherein the controlling, by the client, of the display of the image of the obstacle comprises: displaying, by the client, the image of the obstacle in a display area in which the icon corresponding to the obstacle is located (the output unit 400 may display, on the display, external detection information, obstacle information, position information, a cleaning region, a cleaning map, etc. that are detected by the control unit 200 [Kim, 0025]).
Claim 5. (previously presented): The combination of Kim and Lee, teaches the image-viewing method according to claim 4. Kim further teaches further comprising: while feeding back the image of the obstacle to the terminal, feeding back at least one of following pieces of information related to the obstacle: a type of the obstacle, a confidence of the obstacle, and a quantity of times that the cleaning machine avoids the obstacle (the control unit 200 may precisely make a cleaning map by using obstacle information detected by a front sensor, a second obstacle sensor, etc. and a position identified by the upper camera sensor [Kim, 0048]).
Claim(s) 6-9, and 19, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim (US 20160144512 A1, published: 5/26/2016), in view of Lee et al. (US 20200218274 A1, published: 7/9/2020), and in further view of Lazovich (US 20210089906 A1, published: 3/25/2021).
Claim 6. (previously presented): The combination of Kim and Lee, teaches the image-viewing method according to claim 4. The combination of Kim and Lee, does not teach further comprising: after selecting the image of the obstacle identified by the identification information from the obstacle image database, cropping the image of the obstacle; and accordingly, feeding back the image of the obstacle to the terminal comprises feeding back a cropped image to the terminal.
However, Lazovich teaches further comprising: after selecting the image of the obstacle identified by the identification information from the obstacle image database, cropping the image of the obstacle; and accordingly, feeding back the image of the obstacle to the terminal comprises feeding back a cropped image to the terminal (in the context of processing an image, the determined characteristic may comprise a classification of the image or a classification of one or more objects in the image; an identification of one or more objects, animals, people, obstacles, etc., in an image; a segmentation of the image (e.g., a bounding box or cropped version of the image); a labelling of the image (e.g., with a caption, class, or other suitable label) [Lazovich, 0072]; Examiner's Note: wherein it is implicit that the image is identified and cropped after the an image is selected. Feedback being the labelling of the image).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the obstacle detection of a cleaning machine invention of the combination of Kim and Lee, to include the identification of the obstacle feature of Lazovich.
One would have been motivated to make this modification to make a judgement as to whether said obstacle would prevent the cleaning machine from doing its job, or whether it is fit to be cleaned.
Claim 19, having similar elements to claim 1, is likewise rejected.
Claim 7. (previously presented): The combination of Kim, Lee, and Lazovich, teaches the image-viewing method according to claim 6, further comprising: receiving a request to view an original image of the cropped image; and feeding back, in response to the request to view the original image, the image of the obstacle identified by the identification information (Examiner's Note: the image being cropped, from an original which must exist first, and can be viewed).
Claim 8. (previously presented): The combination of Kim, Lee, and Lazovich, teaches the image-viewing method according to claim 6. Kim further teaches further comprising, before selecting the image of the obstacle identified by the identification information from the obstacle image database, storing one or more images into the obstacle image database in advance, wherein each of the one or more images represents a respective obstacle; and allocating, to each of the one or more images, a piece of identification information used to uniquely identify the image (the storage unit 500 may further store image information, obstacle information, position information, a cleaning region, a cleaning map, etc. in addition to audio information [Kim, 0028]).
Claim 9. (currently amended): he combination of Kim, Lee, and Lazovich, teaches the image-viewing method according to claim 6. Lee further teaches wherein the identification information comprises one or more identifiers ([Lee, 0089, FIG. 8]). Kim further teaches and further comprises, before selecting the image of the obstacle identified by the identification information from the obstacle image database, storing one or more images and the one or more identifiers into the obstacle image database in advance, wherein each of the one or more images represents a respective obstacle and each identifier is associated with a respective image and used to uniquely identify the obstacle represented by the image (the storage unit 500 may further store image information, obstacle information, position information, a cleaning region, a cleaning map, etc. in addition to audio information [Kim, 0028]).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SETH A SILVERMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-9783. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thur, 8AM-4PM MST.
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, Adam Queler can be reached at (571)272-4140. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Seth A Silverman/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2172
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