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 .
Applicant’s response to the Non-final Office Action dated 03/25/2025, filed with the office on 07/16/2025, has been entered and made of record.
Response to Amendment
5. In light of Applicant’s amendment of the claims, the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejections of record for insufficient antecedent basis have been withdrawn.
Status of Claims
Claims 47-54, 67-76, 91-98 and 111 are pending. Claims 47, 48, 67 and 91 are amended. Claims 1-46, 55-66, 77-90 and 99-110 are cancelled. Claim 111 is new.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on July 16, 2025 with respect to rejection of claims under 35 U.S.C. 103 has been fully considered; but they are not found persuasive. Specifically, in page 2 of its reply, Applicant argues in second paragraph that Campomanes does not disclose the term ‘pixels’ and therefore, Campomanes cannot be said to disclose the claimed limitation. Examiner respectfully disagrees. Campomanes discloses point based dimensional calculation to determine the wear of the component in ¶0035: “when the distance from the new point 228 to the wear limit point 230 is known, the wear percentage can be determined using only one of d1 or d2”. Campomanes further adds that the points are the same size as pixels and can be represented differently -- ¶0045: “the points 406 may be relatively smaller, e.g., pixel-sized, and/or may be replaced by some other graphical representation”. Therefore, applicant’s arguments are not found persuasive.
Applicant’s amendment of independent Claims 47, 67 and 91, which has altered the scope of the claims of the instant application, has necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this office action with respect to claims of the instant application. Accordingly, in response to Applicant’s arguments that are merely directed to the amended portion of the claims, new analyses have been presented below, which make Applicant’s arguments moot.
Consequently, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL.
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 47, 50-54, 67-76 and 91-98 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Campomanes et al. (US 2021/0042907 A1) in view of Arnold et al. (US 2018/0285673 A1).
Regarding claim 47, Campomanes teaches, A method for determining a dimension of a wear part using (Campomanes, ¶0003: “methods for determining part wear using”) a digital representation comprising: capturing at least one digital representation of a first wear part (Campomanes, ¶0017: “determining part wear based on sensor or image data of the part”) of an earth working machine; (Campomanes, ¶0002: “earth working activities (e.g., mining, construction, dredging, or the like), machines”) receiving, the digital representation of the first wear part; (Campomanes, ¶0045: “a wear representation 404, which may be a visual depiction of the sensed part, e.g., corresponding to the sensor data generated by the sensor 110”) (Campomanes, ¶0026: “the bounding surface determination component 128 can generate or select a bounding surface, model or contour that at least partially envelopes, e.g., that is bigger than, the part model(s) 126 and/or the measured worn part 116”) with a wear profile associated with a second wear part having a known dimension. (Campomanes, ¶0035: “when the distance from the new point 228 to the wear limit point 230 is known, the wear percentage can be determined using only one of d1 or d2”). However, Campomanes does not explicitly teach, identifying the type of first wear part in the digital representation; utilizing the identity of the type of the first wear part to adjust a boundary outline around the identified first wear part.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Arnold teaches, identifying the type of first wear part in the digital representation; (Arnold, ¶0246: “identifying a detected shape as one of a number of typical shapes”) utilizing the identity of the type of the first wear part to adjust a boundary (Arnold, ¶0246: “based on stored information relating to the identified typical shape, associate surface and/or material properties with the identified shape to compensate the sensed value”) outline around the identified first wear part. (Arnold, ¶0025: “approximate at least part of an outline of a sensed object by determining those sensing volumes”).
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 Campomanes using the teachings of Arnold to introduce compensating a sensed information of an identified object based on known information. A person skilled in the art would be motivated to combine the known elements as described above and achieve the predictable result of accurately approximating an outline for the object based on known object properties. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the analogous arts Campomanes and Arnold to obtain the invention in claim 47.
Regarding claim 50, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 47, where the dimension of the first wear part is a length of the first wear part. (Campomanes, ¶0043: “the wear metric may be expressed as… a length associated with the distance from individual of the measured points 310 to a corresponding one of the wear limit points 312”).
Regarding claim 51, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 50, wherein the length of the first wear part is used to determine the amount of wear since a previous determination. (Campomanes, ¶0002: “monitor part wear, e.g., to understand and/or quantify wear part including to replace parts prior to failure”).\
Regarding claim 52, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 51, wherein the amount of wear since a previous determination and the time between determinations is used (Campomanes, ¶0035: “the amount of remaining (or worn) part may be associated with a time associated with continued use of the part”) to predict an end of life for the first wear part. (Campomanes, ¶0024: “a wear limit part model may dictate when a part will be replaced, and thus selection of the wear limit part model may be based at least in part on a desired condition that will suggest replacement”).
Regarding claim 53, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 47, further comprising capturing an image of a work bench (Campomanes, ¶0017: “the machine site 102 can include a worksite”) surrounding the first wear part. (Campomanes, ¶0017: “capture sensor data, e.g., point cloud data representative of a part, at the machine site 102 using the sensor 110”).
Regarding claim 54, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 47, further comprising determining if the determined dimension is below a minimum and if so, then transmitting an alert indication. (Campomanes, ¶0028: “receive notifications, such as emails or text messages, from other elements of the environment, e.g., the data processing system(s) 120 and/or the user device 108, indicating that a wear part of machine is sufficiently worn, e.g. that the wear metric meets or exceeds a threshold wear metric”).
Regarding claim 67, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, A method for determining a dimension of a wear part using (Campomanes, ¶0003: “methods for determining part wear using”) a digital representation comprising: capturing a stream of a plurality of digital representations (Campomanes, ¶0003: “capturing digital images using a camera”) of at least two wear parts of an earth working machine; (Campomanes, ¶0016: “determining wear of parts. While specific parts described herein may be parts on machines, e.g., ground-engaging machines, earth-moving machines”) receiving, the stream of the plurality of digital representations of the at least two wear parts; (Campomanes, ¶0045: “a wear representation 404, which may be a visual depiction of the sensed part, e.g., corresponding to the sensor data generated by the sensor 110, along with information about wear determined by the data processing system”) modeling the at least two wear parts as a 3-dimensional (3D) object using the digital representations; (Campomanes, ¶0037: “each of the measured surface 302, the new part model 304, the wear limit model 306, and/or the bounding model 308 may be three-dimensional” ) (Campomanes, ¶0003: “determining distances, e.g., based on a number of pixels”) associated with a desired dimension on one of the at least two wear parts (Campomanes, ¶0035: “the wear metric may be determined as one of a distance from the measured point to one of the new point 228”) and a second pixel value for a known dimension; (Campomanes, ¶0035: “the distance from the new point 228 to the wear limit point 230 is known”) and determining the desired dimension of the at least one wear part by relating the first pixel value with the second pixel value. (Campomanes, ¶0042: “a wear percentage (wear %) which may be a numerical representation (as a percentage) of the ratio of (1) a distance from one of the measured points 310 to an associated one of the new points 316 to (2) a distance from the associated one of the new points”; ¶0045: “the points 406 may be relatively smaller, e.g., pixel-sized, and/or may be replaced by some other graphical representation”). However, Campomanes does not explicitly teach, identifying the type of wear part for the at least two wear parts.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Arnold teaches, identifying the type of wear part for the at least two wear parts. (Arnold, ¶0246: “identifying a detected shape as one of a number of typical shapes (such as identified objects… based on stored information relating to the identified typical shape”).
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 Campomanes using the teachings of Arnold to introduce identifying an object based on its shape. A person skilled in the art would be motivated to combine the known elements as described above and achieve the predictable result of automatically identifying machine parts of known shapes. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the analogous arts Campomanes and Arnold to obtain the invention in claim 67.
Regarding claim 68, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 67, wherein the identification of the at least two wear parts is performed by 3D image segmentation, boundary boxing, (Campomanes, ¶0033: “the bounding models 222 represent surfaces that at least partially envelop the part models”) and/or outlining. (Campomanes, ¶0031: “surfaces are shown in the example 204 for reference, and to illustrate an outline of the worn part 116”).
Regarding claim 69, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 67, wherein the plurality of digital representations contains a continuous pass of at least one of above, at an angle from, and/or the front of the lip of a bucket. (Campomanes, ¶0002: “an excavating bucket may be provided with excavating teeth and/or shrouds attached to a lip of the bucket to initiate contact with the ground, e.g., prior to the lip of the bucket”; and ¶0083: “sensor 110 to capture sensor data about the worn part 116, e.g., a tooth on the bucket of the machine 104”).
Regarding claim 70, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 67, wherein the modeling of the at least two wear parts is done by photogrammetry. (Campomanes, ¶0031: “two-dimensional representation… while shown in a two-dimensional coordinate system, techniques described in association with FIG. 2 are equally applicable to alternate coordinate systems, including but not limited to three-dimensional coordinate systems).
Regarding claim 71, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 67, where the dimension of the at least one wear part is a length of the at least one wear part. (Campomanes, ¶0043: “the wear metric may be expressed as… a length associated with the distance from individual of the measured points 310 to a corresponding one of the wear limit points 312”).
Regarding claim 72, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 71, wherein the length of the at least one wear part is used to determine the amount of wear since a previous determination. (Campomanes, ¶0002: “monitor part wear, e.g., to understand and/or quantify wear part including to replace parts prior to failure”).
Regarding claim 73, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 72, wherein the amount of wear since a previous determination and the time between determinations is used (Campomanes, ¶0035: “the amount of remaining (or worn) part may be associated with a time associated with continued use of the part”) to predict an end of life for the at least one wear part. (Campomanes, ¶0024: “a wear limit part model may dictate when a part will be replaced, and thus selection of the wear limit part model may be based at least in part on a desired condition that will suggest replacement”).
Regarding claim 74, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 67, further comprising capturing an image of a work bench (Campomanes, ¶0017: “the machine site 102 can include a worksite”) surrounding the at least two wear parts. (Campomanes, ¶0017: “capture sensor data, e.g., point cloud data representative of a part, at the machine site 102 using the sensor 110”).
Regarding claim 75, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 67, further comprising determining if the determined dimension is below a minimum and if so, then transmitting an alert indication. (Campomanes, ¶0028: “receive notifications, such as emails or text messages, from other elements of the environment, e.g., the data processing system(s) 120 and/or the user device 108, indicating that a wear part of machine is sufficiently worn, e.g. that the wear metric meets or exceeds a threshold wear metric”).
Regarding claim 76, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 67, wherein the known dimension is one of a shroud length, shroud width, wear cap width, wear cap length, a distance between two points, a distance between two shrouds, or a length of an adapter leg to the end of the lip of the bucket. (Campomanes, ¶0002: “excavating bucket may be provided with excavating teeth and/or shrouds attached to a lip of the bucket to initiate contact with the ground, e.g., prior to the lip of the bucket”; also see Fig. 2 and Fig. 3).
Regarding claim 91, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, A method for determining a dimension of a wear part using (Campomanes, ¶0003: “methods for determining part wear using”) a digital representation comprising: capturing a digital representation (Campomanes, ¶0045: “a wear representation 404, which may be a visual depiction of the sensed part”) of at least two wear parts of an earth working machine; (Campomanes, ¶0016: “determining wear of parts. While specific parts described herein may be parts on machines, e.g., ground-engaging machines, earth-moving machines”) receiving, the digital representation of the at least two wear parts; (Campomanes, ¶0045: “a wear representation 404, which may be a visual depiction of the sensed part, e.g., corresponding to the sensor data generated by the sensor 110, along with information about wear determined by the data processing system”) (Campomanes, ¶0003: “determining distances, e.g., based on a number of pixels”) associated with a desired dimension on one of the at least two wear parts (Campomanes, ¶0035: “the wear metric may be determined as one of a distance from the measured point to one of the new point 228”) and a second pixel value for a known dimension; (Campomanes, ¶0035: “the distance from the new point 228 to the wear limit point 230 is known”) and determining the desired dimension of the at least one wear part by relating the first pixel value with the second pixel value. (Campomanes, ¶0042: “a wear percentage (wear %) which may be a numerical representation (as a percentage) of the ratio of (1) a distance from one of the measured points 310 to an associated one of the new points 316 to (2) a distance from the associated one of the new points”; ¶0045: “the points 406 may be relatively smaller, e.g., pixel-sized, and/or may be replaced by some other graphical representation”). However, Campomanes does not explicitly teach, identifying the type of the at least two wear parts.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Arnold teaches, identifying the type of the at least two wear parts. (Arnold, ¶0246: “identifying a detected shape as one of a number of typical shapes (such as identified objects… based on stored information relating to the identified typical shape”).
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 Campomanes using the teachings of Arnold to introduce identifying an object based on its shape. A person skilled in the art would be motivated to combine the known elements as described above and achieve the predictable result of automatically identifying machine parts of known shapes. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the analogous arts Campomanes and Arnold to obtain the invention in claim 91.
Regarding claim 92, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 91, wherein the identification of the wear part is performed by 2- dimensional image segmentation, boundary boxing, (Campomanes, ¶0033: “the bounding models 222 represent surfaces that at least partially envelop the part models”) and/or outlining. (Campomanes, ¶0031: “surfaces are shown in the example 204 for reference, and to illustrate an outline of the worn part 116”).
Regarding claim 93, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claims 91, where the dimension of the at least one wear part is a length of the at least one wear part. (Campomanes, ¶0043: “the wear metric may be expressed as… a length associated with the distance from individual of the measured points 310 to a corresponding one of the wear limit points 312”).
Regarding claim 94, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 93, wherein the length of the wear part is used to determine the amount of wear since a previous determination. (Campomanes, ¶0002: “monitor part wear, e.g., to understand and/or quantify wear part including to replace parts prior to failure”).
Regarding claim 95, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 94, wherein the amount of wear since a previous determination and the time between determinations is used (Campomanes, ¶0035: “the amount of remaining (or worn) part may be associated with a time associated with continued use of the part”) to predict an end of life for the at least one wear part. (Campomanes, ¶0024: “a wear limit part model may dictate when a part will be replaced, and thus selection of the wear limit part model may be based at least in part on a desired condition that will suggest replacement”).
Regarding claim 96, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 91, further comprising capturing an image of a work bench (Campomanes, ¶0017: “the machine site 102 can include a worksite”) surrounding the at least one wear part. (Campomanes, ¶0017: “capture sensor data, e.g., point cloud data representative of a part, at the machine site 102 using the sensor 110”).
Regarding claim 97, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 91, further comprising determining if the determined dimension is below a minimum and if so, then transmitting an alert indication. (Campomanes, ¶0028: “receive notifications, such as emails or text messages, from other elements of the environment, e.g., the data processing system(s) 120 and/or the user device 108, indicating that a wear part of machine is sufficiently worn, e.g. that the wear metric meets or exceeds a threshold wear metric”).
Regarding claim 98, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 91, wherein the known dimension is one of a shroud length, shroud width, wear cap width, wear cap length, a distance between two points, a distance between two shrouds, or a length of an adapter leg to the end of the lip of the bucket. (Campomanes, ¶0002: “excavating bucket may be provided with excavating teeth and/or shrouds attached to a lip of the bucket to initiate contact with the ground, e.g., prior to the lip of the bucket”; also see Fig. 2 and Fig. 3).
Claim 48 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Campomanes et al. (US 2021/0042907 A1) in view of Arnold et al. (US 2018/0285673 A1) and in further view of Vallvé Bertran et al. (US 2022/0025617 A1).
Regarding claim 48, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 47. However, the combination of Campomanes in view of Arnold does not explicitly teach, wherein the identification of the type of the first wear part is performed by a convolution neural network.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Vallvé Bertran teaches, wherein the identification of the type of the first wear part (Vallvé Bertran, ¶0022: “taking into account the different types of wear elements in terms of dimensions, shapes and number”) is performed by a convolution neural network. (Vallvé Bertran, ¶0044: “performing machine learning so as to progressively determine more accurately the status and operation of the wear elements”).
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 Campomanes in view of Arnold using the teachings of Vallvé Bertran to introduce a machines learning algorithm. A person skilled in the art would be motivated to combine the known elements as described above and achieve the predictable result of employing the algorithm to identify wear to the inspected component. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the analogous arts Campomanes, Arnold and Vallvé Bertran to obtain the invention in claim 48.
Claim 49 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Campomanes et al. (US 2021/0042907 A1) in view of Arnold et al. (US 2018/0285673 A1) and in further view of Finley et al. (US 2017/0352199 A1).
Regarding claim 49, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 47. However, Campomanes does not explicitly teach, wherein the digital representation is a top view of the first wear part.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Finley teaches, wherein the digital representation is a top view of the first wear part. (Finley, ¶0070: “the image is a top view image of the wear member that is associated with machine”).
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 Campomanes in view of Arnold using the teachings of Finley to introduce a top view image. A person skilled in the art would be motivated to combine the known elements as described above and achieve the predictable result of efficiently measuring the wear of the inspected component from the top view image. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the analogous arts Campomanes, Arnold and Finley to obtain the invention in claim 49.
Claim 111 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Campomanes et al. (US 2021/0042907 A1) in view of Arnold et al. (US 2018/0285673 A1) and in further view of Shirahara et al. (US 2021/0006704 A1).
Regarding claim 111, Campomanes in view of Arnold teaches, The method of claim 47, wherein the step of utilizing the identity of the type of the first wear part to. However, the combination of Campomanes and Arnold does not explicitly teach, adjust a boundary outline around the identified first wear part includes receiving a skewed digital representation and rotating the skewed digital representation so that the first wear part can be bound.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Shirahara teaches, adjust a boundary outline around the identified first wear part includes receiving a skewed digital representation (Shirahara, ¶0046: “the photographed image is subjected to skew correction”) and rotating the skewed digital representation so that the first wear part can be bound. (Shirahara, ¶0043: “an outline of a medicine image… performs skew correction by making rotate the medicine image for the rotation angle”).
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 Campomanes in view of Arnold using the teachings of Shirahara to introduce skew correction. A person skilled in the art would be motivated to combine the known elements as described above and achieve the predictable result of aligning an image of an object with an outline/bound. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the analogous arts Campomanes, Arnold and Shirahara to obtain the invention in claim 111.
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.
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/MEHRAZUL ISLAM/Examiner, Art Unit 2662 /AMANDEEP SAINI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2662