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 .
Priority
Acknowledgement is made of Applicant’s claim of priority from U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/291,047, filed December 17, 2021.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 July 13, 2026 has been entered.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-6, 9-14 and 17-22 are pending. Claims 7-8 and 15-16 have been canceled. Claims 21-22 are newly added.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see p. 9, filed June 17, 2026, with respect to the 35 USC 101 rejections have been fully considered and are persuasive. The amendments to the claims have overcome the previous 35 USC 101 abstract idea rejections and they therefore have been withdrawn.
With regards to the 35 USC § 102 rejection of claim 1, applicant argues the claims as amended are not taught by the immediate prior art and the claim should not be rejected under 35 USC § 102. Applicant’s remarks and amendments have been fully considered and are found convincing, however, upon further search and consideration, the newly discovered Ramao prior art document, referenced in the updated rejection below, teaches the limitations as claimed. Please see below for full rejection. Accordingly, applicant’s amendments have necessitated the new grounds of rejection under 35 USC § 103 set forth.
Applicant further argues that the limitation “the sporting apparatus comprises at least one of a basketball backboard, a soccer goal, a lacrosse goal, or a hockey goal” in newly added claim 21 cannot be taught by Marty’s computer system. Examiner respectfully disagrees. As described in the 35 USC 103 rejection below, Marty teaches sensors mounted on a basketball backboard (see Marty, Col. 20, lines 49-58). Examiner asserts that Marty is sufficient to teach this limitation because the backboard including the sensors is part of Marty’s sporting apparatus. Thus, the 35 USC 103 rejection of the claims is maintained.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 3-5, 9, 11-13, 17 and 19-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Marty et al. (US 10360685 B2) in view of Ramao et al. (US 2021/0287057 A1) further in view of Dai et al. (US 9,600,717 B1).
Regarding claim 1, Marty teaches a system (Marty, Col. 14, lines 21-24, a system is provided for capturing the performance in the sporting environment) comprising:
a housing configured to be coupled to a sporting apparatus (Marty, Col. 46, lines 3-26, the components of the system may be enclosed within a single housing or may be divided between a plurality of different housings enclosing different components of the system);
a device disposed in the housing, the device configured to monitor and generate data regarding a sports action of a user (Marty, Col. 47, lines 60-64, a camera used in a machine vision system (i.e., a device configured to monitor and generate data regarding a sports action of a user), a touch screen display, a computer, and a sound projection device are integrated into a housing with a support chassis);
one or more processors disposed in the housing (Marty, Col. 46, lines 40-51, the computer may be a modified PC using a 1.6 GHz processor), wherein the one or more processors are configured to:
receive (i) the data from the device (Marty, Col. 32, lines 9-22, the system may include a data capture that receives video and/or sound data from one or more cameras and microphones coupled to the system);
based on the performance outcome of the sports action of the user relative to the one or more target goals, generate analytics that indicate (i) characteristics of the user (Marty, Col. 19, lines 26-38, self and relative characteristics of an object may be determined. For instance, a player may be a shooter or a defender in a basketball game. The player may be identified as a shooter by identifying the basketball and then associating the basketball with a particular player. A defender may be defined as a player that is in the vicinity of the shooter), (ii) characteristics of the sports action (Marty, Col. 6, lines 29-49, based upon data captured of a basketball approaching a basketball hoop, it may be possible to predict the velocity, direction and angle of the ball as it left the shooters hand), (iii) recommendations for improving the sports action for subsequent sports actions (Marty, Col. 37, lines 27-35, an optimum shooting angle is predicted for the individual based upon their measured variability in their shooting mechanics. A recommendation for this type of player may be to adjust their shot so that their average entry angle is as close to 45 degrees as possible), or (iv) game performance (Marty, Col. 21, lines 47-59, a number of identifiers may be determined, such as time/date, player name, team, etc.); and
provide output data representing the analytics (Marty, Col. 47, lines 29-35, a touch screen display may be used to input and display operation information. Col. 19, lines 60-67, an interface may be provided that allows a user information to be mined from the database and output to a user).
Although Marty teaches an outcome prediction of the trajectory of an object for a plurality of types of sports (Marty, Col. 7, lines 1-6), Marty does not explicitly teach to “receive, from a client device, data indicating a type of sport selected by the user to be played” and “configure one or more components of the device to track and acquire the data regarding the sports action of the user according to the type of sport”. However, in an analogous field of endeavor, Ramao teaches the user can select, from the application, the type of sport practiced by means of the man-machine interface (i.e., data indicating a type of sport selected by the user to be played). This information is provided to the sensor which is able to configure itself according to the sport (i.e., configure one or more components of the device to track and acquire the data regarding the sports action of the user according to the type of sport) (Ramao, Para. [0124]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Marty with the teachings of Ramao by including receiving a user selection of a type of sport practiced and configuring a sensor to perform tracking a data acquisition based on the selected type of sport. One having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine these references because doing so would allow for improving motion recognition for movements made by a sportsperson, as recognized by Ramao.
Although Marty in view of Ramao teaches a user selection of a type of sport (Ramao, Para. [0124]), the references do not explicitly teach to “identify a trained machine learning model from a plurality of trained machine learning models associated with the data indicating the type of sport”, “apply the received data as input to the identified trained machine learning model” and “in response, generate, from the identified trained machine learning model, a performance outcome of the sports action of the user relative to one or more target goals”. However, in an analogous field of endeavor, Dai teaches a sports type of the input sports video is detected and a set of trained feature models are selected for the received input sports video based on the detected sports type, e.g., a baseball swing action from a baseball sports video (i.e., a trained machine learning model is identified from a plurality of trained models based on the type of sport). The set of selected feature models include a player detector and a set of key pose identifiers (Dai, Col. 12, lines 46-59). The features extracted may be fed into the key pose identifiers to generate score sequences for each key pose of the sports action, indicating how well a pose in a video frame of the input sports video matches each of the key poses of the sports action. After the score sequences are generated, the recognition application module applies the trained meta classifier to determine whether a sports action has happened in the input sports video (i.e., generate a performance outcome of the sports action of the user relative to one or more target goals) (Dai, Col. 13, lines 1-15).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Marty in view of Ramao with the teachings of Dai by including identifying a trained machine-learning model to apply based on the type of sport and applying received data to the trained model to generate a performance outcome of the sports action. One having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine these references, because doing so would allow for recognizing if sports actions have occurred in the video frames, as recognized by Dai. Thus, the claimed invention would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 3, Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai teaches the system of claim 1, and further teaches wherein the device comprises at least one of a depth-sensing camera and an RGB camera (Marty, Col. 20, lines 3-16, one or more mono, stereo or RGB-Z camera(s) may be used to gather data at a location where basketball is played), wherein the depth-sensing camera is configured to perform one or more of the following (i) detect the user on a field (Marty, Col. 20, lines 17-34, the cameras may allow information to be captured on one or more of the objects on or near the court such as shooter #13, defender #15), (ii) track movements of the user (Marty, Col. 28, lines 59-64, these cameras may be able to capture 3-D position of all movement of the ball, 10 players, and 3 referees for the half court), (iii) detect a sporting object used by the user for the sports action (Marty, Col. 20, lines 17-34, the cameras may allow information to be captured on one or more of the objects such as a basketball), (iv) track movements of the sporting object (Marty, Col. 28, lines 59-64, these cameras may be able to capture 3-D position of all movement of the ball), (v) detect a body posture of a user (Marty, Col. 20, lines 17-34, the cameras may allow information to be captured on one or more of the objects such as hands of shooter, head of shooter, shoulder rotation of shooter with respect to the basket, feet of shooter), and (vi) record a field of view for a sporting field, and the RGB camera is configured to record video images (Marty, Col. 20, lines 17-34, five of the stereo camera pairs are focused on the floor action as shown in Fig. 13C. A field of view for each of the cameras in the camera system focused on the floor for one half of the court is shown. Col. 32, lines 9-22, the system may include a data capture that receives video and/or sound data from one or more cameras and microphones coupled to the system).
Regarding claim 4, Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are configured to detect a type of sport being played by the user (Dai, Col. 12, lines 46-59, a sports type of the input sports video is detected).
The proposed combination as well as the motivation for combining the Marty, Ramao and Dai references presented in the rejection of Claim 1, apply to Claim 4 and are incorporated herein by reference. Thus, the system recited in Claim 4 is met by Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai.
Regarding claim 5, Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai teaches the system of claim 1, further comprising a speaker, wherein the speaker is configured to provide audible output in response to receiving the output data representing the analytics from the one or more processors (Marty, Col. 48, lines 7-20, the travel system may generate output signals that may be routed through a portable audio system for amplification via speakers on the audio system to provide feedback information).
Claims 9 and 11-13 recite methods with steps corresponding to the elements of the systems recited in Claims 1 and 3-5, respectively. Therefore, the recited steps of these claims are mapped to the proposed references in the same manner as the corresponding elements in their corresponding system claims. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Marty, Ramao and Dai references, presented in rejection of Claim 1, apply to these claims.
Claims 17 and 19-20 recite computer-readable storage mediums storing programs with instructions corresponding to the steps recited in Claims 9 and 11, respectively. Therefore, the recited programming instructions of these claims are mapped to the proposed references in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Marty, Ramao and Dai references, presented in rejection of Claim 1, apply to these claims. Finally, the Marty, Ramao and Dai reference discloses a computer readable storage medium (Marty, Claim 52, a non-transitory computer readable medium…).
Regarding claim 21, Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the sporting apparatus comprises at least one of a basketball backboard, a soccer goal, a lacrosse goal, or a hockey goal (Marty, Col. 20, lines 49-58, for basketball, sensors may be mounted on the backboard).
Regarding claim 22, Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai teaches the system of claim 1, wherein configuring the one or more components of the device comprises the one or more processors further configured to adjust a sensitivity of a plurality of sensors of the device based on the type of sport selected by the user (Ramao, Para. [0124], the user can select, from the application, the type of sport practiced by means of the man-machine interface. This information is provided to the sensor which is able to configure itself according to the sport).
The proposed combination as well as the motivation for combining the Marty, Ramao and Dai references presented in the rejection of Claim 1, apply to Claim 22 and are incorporated herein by reference. Thus, the system recited in Claim 22 is met by Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai.
Claims 2, 10 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Marty et al. (US 10360685 B2) in view of Ramao et al. (US 2021/0287057 A1) further in view of Dai et al. (US 9,600,717 B1), as applied to claims 1, 3-5, 9, 11-13, 17 and 19-22 above, and further in view of Mark Connell (US 2023/0144415 A1, filed November 10, 2021) further in view of Thurman et al. (US 2014/0222177 A1).
Regarding claim 2, Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai teaches the system of claim 1, and further teaches the device comprises a plurality of sensors, wherein the plurality of sensors comprise one or more of (Marty, Col. 6, line 62-Col. 7 line 6, the sensor may include accelerometers and rotational sensors that allow forces generated by the player to be determined), and wherein
the accelerometers are configured to generate sensor data indicative of an indication of a location of a sports object relative to the system based on accelerometer data and a vibration pattern (Marty, Col. 6, line 62-Col. 7 line 6, the sensor may include accelerometers and rotational sensors that allow forces generated by the player to be determined); and
wherein the one or more processors are configured to: (iv) determine the indication of the location of the sports object relative to the system based on the accelerometer data and the vibration pattern using the sensor data from the accelerometers (Marty, Col. 6, line 62-Col. 7 line 6, the sensor may include accelerometers and rotational sensors that allow forces generated by the player to be determined. Col. 20, lines 35-58, 3-axis accelerometers to gather detailed data on the 3-D motion of the hand during a shooting or passing motion).
Although Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai teaches a plurality of sensors including an accelerometer (Marty, Col. 20, lines 35-58), the references do not explicitly teach “the LIDAR sensors are configured to generate sensor data indicative of the sports action of the user and one or more characteristics indicative of the sports action”, “the motion sensors are configured to generate sensor data indicative of one or more users on a field within proximity to the system”, “(i) detect the sports action of the user and one or more characteristics indicative of the sports action using the sensor data from the LIDAR sensors” and “(ii) detect the one or more users on the field within the proximity to the system using the sensor data from the motion sensors”. However, in an analogous field of endeavor, Connell teaches sensors capturing data associated with the target object, for example, if the sensors are LIDAR sensors, the sensor data may include LIDAR data that can be used to generate a digital representation of the target object (Connell, Para. [0071]). Connell further teaches other sensors including digital cameras, motion sensors, proximity sensors, sonar sensors, light sensors, and/or the like, and the data from the various sensors, individually or in combination, may be used to detect and identify a target object placed within the initial area (Connell, Para. [0076]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai with the teachings of Connell by including LIDAR sensors for detecting the sports action of the user and motion sensors for detecting users. One having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine these references, because doing so would allow for a system to estimate the trajectory path of an object, as recognized by Connell.
Although Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai and Connell teaches a plurality of sensors including accelerometers (Marty, Col. 20, lines 35-58), LIDAR sensors (Connell, Para. [0071]), and motion sensors (Connell, Para. [0076]), the references do not explicitly teach “the trip sensors are configured to generate sensor data indicative of whether the sports action was successful” and “(iii) determine whether the performance outcome of the sports action is successful relative to the one or more target goals using the sensor data from the trip sensors”. However, in an analogous field of endeavor, Thurman teaches a device configured to receive signals output from signal transmitter of the sensor of the basketball and to visibly present information based upon a determination of whether one or more basketball shots were made shots or missed shots (Thurman, Para. [0050]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai and Connell with the teachings of Thurman by including a sensor (i.e., trip sensor) for determining whether the sports action was successful (i.e., shot was made). One having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine these references, because doing so would allow for a sports sensing system that allows a player to track their performances, as recognized by Thurman. Thus, the claimed invention would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date.
Claim 10 recites a method with steps corresponding to the elements of the system recited in Claim 2. Therefore, the recited steps of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding elements in its corresponding system claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Marty, Ramao, Dai, Connell, and Thurman references, presented in rejection of Claim 2, apply to this claim.
Claim 18 recites a computer-readable storage medium storing a program with instructions corresponding to the steps recited in Claim 10. Therefore, the recited programming instructions of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Marty, Ramao, Dai, Connell, and Thurman references, presented in rejection of Claim 2, apply to this claim. Finally, the combination of the Marty, Ramao, Dai, Connell, and Thurman references discloses a computer readable storage medium (Marty, Claim 52, a non-transitory computer readable medium…).
Claims 6 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Marty et al. (US 10360685 B2) in view of Dibenedetto et al. (US 2015/0379351 A1).
Regarding claim 6, Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai and Dibenedetto teaches the system of claim 1, and further teaches wherein a display screen that is configured to display one or more of (i) the data from the device (Marty, Col. 25, lines 62-65, video frame data and possibly sounds associated with the simulation may be output to a display for the selected perspective), (iii) data from a second control unit connected over a network (Marty, Col. 46, lines 40-51, the digitized frame data from a machine vision system and other sensor data may be processed by a computer. The computer may also include a mass storage device, such as a hard drive and various network/device communications interfaces), and (iv) data from a client device (Marty, Col. 50, lines 1-9, the output from the data services, such as a portable record or information viewed on the graphical interface, may be used by the system clients).
Although Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai teaches outputting video frame data to a display (Marty, Col. 25, lines 62-65), the references do not explicitly teach “(ii) a heads up display (HUD) displaying sports actions attempted by the user”. However, in an analogous field of endeavor, Dibenedetto teaches an athletic activity HUD (Dibenedetto, Para. [0050]) that may playback a first person recorded video wearing the HUD such that the first person recorded video takes up the individual’s entire field of view (Dibenedetto, Para. [0066]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Marty in view of Ramao further in view of Dai with the teachings of Dibenedetto by including a heads up display displaying sports actions attempted by a user. One having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine these references, because doing so would allow for presenting computer-generated sensory input via a heads up display to an individual engaged in or observing an athletic activity, as recognized by Dibenedetto. Thus, the claimed invention would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date.
Claim 14 recites a method with steps corresponding to the elements of the system recited in Claims 6. Therefore, the recited steps of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding elements in its corresponding system claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Marty, Ramao, Dai and Dibenedetto references, presented in rejection of Claim 6, apply to this claim.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Emma Rose Goebel whose telephone number is (703)756-5582. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 7:30-5.
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/Emma Rose Goebel/Examiner, Art Unit 2662
/AMANDEEP SAINI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2662
