Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed December 4 2025 has been entered and considered. Claims 1, 10, 16, 19, 20, and 21 have been amended. The amendment does not overcome the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 previously set forth. The rejection is maintained and is restated below with additional discussion of the amended limitations; accordingly, this action is made final.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/4/25 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that the prior art does not disclose the newly added amendments to the independent claims. Remarks of 12/4/25 at Pgs. 7-8. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Applicant argues (Pgs. 7-8):
For example, Applicant submits that neither Marty nor Gambhir teach to require a determination that a start event has occurred when four distinct conditions are satisfied, and that determination is used as a trigger for storing position information.
Examiner responds:
Both Marty and Gambhir disclose a plurality of different predefined conditions to be assessed. Marty discloses “the player may stand at the baseline in service position and hold the ball 122 in front of their body in the normal start position before the service toss.” (Para. 59). They also disclose that the position of both players is considered “The player could then hit the ball against the wall or to another person, which could also be returned. The device 100 may be operable to record each of these shots and provide feedback information, which may vary or may be the same for each shot.” (Para. 62). Gambhir similarly discloses utilizing position information of the players when preparing for game localization and tracking (Paras. 37-38). Gambhir further discloses classifying player actions into specific classes which are not limited, such as “Ready to serve” (Para. 54). Marty also discloses a “ready” state (Para. 59), which implies the existence of a trigger mechanism that transitions the system from idling to active data capture. Gambhir discloses that the ball is immediately localized after being serviced by a player (Para. 44). For tracking to begin at that exact moment, the system must necessarily detect a trigger event. Combining these known detectable states, as taught by both Marty and Gambhir, to automate a recording function provides a predictable result without changing the individual functions of the underlying technologies.
Claim Objections
Claim 19 is objected to because of the following informalities: Lines 3-4 recite “a first side of tennis court” should read “a first side of a tennis court”.
Claim 20 is objected to because of the following informalities: Lines 1-2 recite “the sporting projective” should read “the sporting projectile”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 6-16 and 18-22 (all pending claims) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Prior to the amendment of 12/4/2025, Claim 1 required that “a number of predetermined conditions” exist. This was (and generally still is) understood to be a numeric value (e.g. 1, 2 ,3, 4). The amendment of 12/4/2025 added that the number “comprises” four conditions of a sporting event. It is unclear how the number comprises these states of being, or if an unclaimed count is performed that is the number, or if all of them are required to comprise the number. One possible correction is to rewrite this as a Markush group without reference to the number such as “at least one predetermined condition selected from the group consisting of…”. For application of prior art the claim is being treated as requiring any one of the four listed conditions.
Dependent Claims and Claim 16 share this indefiniteness.
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, 6-16, and 18-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Marty (Previously cited) in view of Ghambir (US Patent App. Pub. No. 2021/0322852 A1, published 10/21/2021, previously cited).
Regarding claim 1, Marty teaches a method, comprising: obtaining information relating to a plurality of objects in a sporting event, wherein the plurality of objects comprises at least one player in the sporting event and at least one sporting projectile in the sporting event, and the information comprises position and trajectory information for the at least one sporting projectile; (Fig. 2, Para. 59, “The player may stand at the baseline in service position and hold the ball 122 in front of their body in the normal start position before the service toss. Both cameras may identify the ball allowing the logic device to calculate the distance from the bag to the ball”), determining, based on the information relating to a plurality of objects, that a number of predetermined conditions have been met (Para. 59, “When the ball is identified, an LED light on the bag 100 may change from red to green signifying the device is ready for the player to hit the serve or another output device, such as an audio device may be used to indicate the device status.”), wherein the number of predetermined conditions comprises:(i) determining that a first player is in an area behind a baseline of a first side of a court for the sporting event (Para. 59, “The player may stand at the baseline in service position and hold the ball 122 in front of their body in the normal start position before the service toss.”);(ii) determining that a second player is positioned on a second side of the court, opposite the first player (Para. 151, “The real on-court mode 616 can involve a real participant, a real opponent”; Para. 160, “In addition, an assessment of the participant's ability to make appropriate strategic shot-choice decisions can be made given the parameters of the oncoming ball (real or virtual), the opponent's position/capability and the participant's position.”); generating, according to a result of the determination, an instruction to start storing position information relating to the position of at least one of the plurality of objects in the sporting event (Para. 59, “When the player serves, the cameras may track the trajectory of the ball during the toss, at impact point, and during the first 20 feet of the flight after racquet impact or at other points along the trajectory.”; Para. 60, “In addition, the device 100 may be operable to determine a relative position of a tennis ball to the one or more objects, such as whether a tennis ball impacts on one side or another side of one of the court markings.”); and storing the position information upon detection of the instruction to start storing position information (Para. 59, “When the ball is identified, an LED light on the bag 100 may change from red to green signifying the device is ready for the player to hit the serve or another output device, such as an audio device may be used to indicate the device status… When the player serves, the cameras may track the trajectory of the ball during the toss).
Marty does not explicitly teach to determine that a start event has occurred or to store position information that indicates the pose of the player nor to determine that the first player is in a predetermined serving pose associated with a service procedure of a projectile; and determining that the second player is in a predetermined receiving pose associated with a receiving a serve of the first player. However, they do mention indicating when a start event can occur as well as determining a relative position of the one or more players.
Ghambir teaches a method, comprising: obtaining information relating to a plurality of objects in a sporting event, wherein the plurality of objects comprises at least one player in the sporting event and at least one sporting projectile in the sporting event, and the information comprises position and pose information of the at least one player and position and trajectory information for the at least one sporting projectile (Para. 37, “In some embodiments, the trajectory tracking server 112 may utilize face recognition models and human pose models with the trajectory of the ball to track a game of interest in the global area”; Para. 35, “The trajectory tracking server 112 determines a pixel-to-metric unit ratio between the 2D media-content and the TT table 104A-N by superimposing the plurality of edges with dimensions of the TT table 104A-N. The pixel-to-metric unit ratio is a ratio between a pixel of the 2D media-content and a metric unit. The trajectory tracking server 112 identifies a contour information of the trajectory of the ball after the ball is serviced using computer vision methods.”), determining, based on the information relating to a plurality of objects, that a number of predetermined conditions have been met (Para. 44, “After the ball is serviced by a player 106A, the ball is immediately localized by performing a global search in the 2D media-content for a colored streak of an expected dimension and locating a region closer to a player associated with servicing the ball… For identifying a start of a service in the foreground TT game in the background-subtracted media-content, the global search may be combined with human pose models to ensure that the ball that is associated with the foreground TT game is localized and not some other ball in the 2D media-content.”, multiple predetermined conditions are disclosed, such as the position of human pose models associated with servicing the ball), wherein the number of predetermined conditions comprises:(i) determining the position of the two players (Para. 52, “The player localization module 306 identifies the one or more players 106A-N using face recognition models and localizes the one or more players 106A-N in a frame of the 2D media-content.”); (iii) determining that the first player is in a predetermined serving pose associated with a service procedure of a projectile; and(iv) determining that the second player is in a predetermined receiving pose associated with a receiving a serve of the first player (Para. 54, “…classify the actions into the following classes including, but not limited to (a) Player(s) idle, (b) Player(s) ready to serve, (c) Service, (d) Backhand shot, and (e) Forehand shot.”, non-limiting examples of actions being classified, including a ready to serve action. A person having ordinary skill in the art would understand that including a classification for “receive” would have been obvious in a tennis/table tennis context.); and upon determining that a number of predetermined conditions have been met, determining that a start event has occurred, wherein the start event indicates a start of play of the sporting event (Para. 44,“After the ball is serviced by a player 106A, the ball is immediately localized by performing a global search in the 2D media-content for a colored streak of an expected dimension and locating a region closer to a player associated with servicing the ball”; Para. 54, “classify the actions into the following classes including, but not limited to (a) Player(s) idle, (b) Player(s) ready to serve, (c) Service, (d) Backhand shot, and (e) Forehand shot.”); generating, according to a result of the determination, an instruction to start storing position information relating to the position of at least one of the plurality of objects in the sporting event, and storing the position information upon detection of the instruction to start storing position information (Para. 44, “In an embodiment, the ball may be localized after 0.01 seconds of being serviced by the player 106A.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Marty to incorporate the teachings of Ghambir to include determining that a start event has occurred and storing position information that indicates the pose of the player, as well as determining that the first player is in a predetermined serving pose associated with a service procedure of a projectile and determining that the second player is in a predetermined receiving pose associated with a receiving a serve of the first player. Marty teaches a method to localize and track a tennis ball and relative player positions in order to enhance further training of the players. Ghambir also teaches a method to localize and track a ball while providing a means of determining pose information of the player. This is done both to supplement the viewing experience of a table tennis match by providing information on the ball and player positioning and to be used later for training purposes. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize the benefit of detecting a start event in a sporting event, as it signifies a time where play has begun, when the tracking of objects and players is pertinent. Creating this start event trigger by utilizing multiple predefined conditions, such as the disclosed relative player position method of Marty, or the pose detection method of Gambhir, would increase the accuracy of these detections, for example a serve is a distinct starting motion, while also providing additional information to viewers and coaches alike. This would further ensure that data storage is only initiated when both players are physically present and ready for the serve, optimizing storage and processing resources.
Regarding claim 6, Marty as modified above teaches all of the elements of claim 1, as stated above, as well as wherein the information comprises information that indicates the position of at least one of the plurality of objects relative to a sports area where the sporting event is being played (Para. 60, “In addition, the device 100 may be operable to determine a relative position of a tennis ball to the one or more objects, such as whether a tennis ball impacts on one side or another side of one of the court markings.”).
Regarding claim 7, Marty as modified above teaches all of the elements of claim 1, as stated above, as well as wherein the information comprises information that indicates the position of at least one of the plurality of objects relative to another object in the sporting event (Para. 60, “Further, the device 100 may be operable to determine a relative position of one or more of a player or parts of a player to the one or more objects, such as a player's foot relative to baseline”).
Regarding claim 8, Marty as modified above teaches all of the elements of claim 1, as stated above, as well as wherein the information comprises information that indicates the velocity or acceleration of at least one of the plurality of objects (Para. 107, “Using a spreadsheet computation, a numerical integration may be performed to generate a database of the trajectory. The database may contain the relevant variables at each time step--acceleration, velocity position, flight angle, etc”).
Regarding claim 9, Marty as modified above teaches all of the elements of claim 1, as stated above, as well as wherein the method further comprises sending the instruction to another device (Para. 79, “The device communication interfaces may allow the computer to communicate with a plurality of peripheral devices and other remote system components.”).
Regarding claim 10, Marty as modified above teaches all of the elements of claim 1, as stated above, as well as wherein the sporting event is a tennis match and the projectile is a tennis ball (Para. 4, “A system for capturing and analyzing a trajectory of a tennis ball or other object associated with a play of a game of tennis and providing feedback is described”).
Regarding claim 11, Marty as modified above teaches all of the elements of claim 10, as stated above, as well as wherein the method further comprises: determining, based on the information, a service box of the tennis court that a serve will be directed towards, and generating a service box indication signal that indicates the determined service box (Para. 54, “The analysis and feedback device may be operable to measure trajectory parameter at numerous locations along a trajectory, such as from toss, to impact, to landing and bounce as shown in FIG. 1 for a server. For example, the device may be able to measure the resulting location where the serve first landed 110d, such as in the opposite court. This location may be recorded simply as serve in or serve out, which may also be provided as feedback to the player. Further, the location could also designate the exact point that the serve hit the court or whether the serve hit a designated target space within the service box”, also see Fig. 8 of Ghambir).
Regarding claim 12, Marty as modified above teaches all of the elements of claim 1, as stated above, as well as wherein the method further comprises: obtaining second information relating to a second object in the sporting event (Para. 62, “In particular embodiments, the device 100 may be operable to track one or more of a series of shots after the serve or a series of shots in general. For instance, player 116a may be serving to a wall 126 or to another player (not shown). Player 116a (a refers to time a and position a) may hit the serve, which may return along trajectory 127 where 128b is the tennis ball along this trajectory. The player 116b (b refers to time b and position b). The player could then hit the ball against the wall or to another person, which could also be returned.”, multiple objects and their positions are obtained), determining, based on the second information, that a stop event has occurred, wherein the stop event indicates a stop of play of the sporting event, generating, according to a result of the determination, a second instruction to stop storing position information relating to the position of the second object in the sporting event, and stop storing the position information upon detection of the instruction to stop storing position information (Ghambir, Para. 59, “The heatmap generation module 508 may generate a heatmap of pitch locations to visually analyze the foreground TT game. The heatmap includes the three-dimensional speed of the ball, a placement of the ball into the one or more zones in the TT table 104A-N, and an indicator that classifies that the placement resulted in a point win or a point loss.”, position information of multiple objects is used to classify whether the end placement of a ball resulted in a point win or loss, necessarily determining a stop event).
Regarding claim 13, Marty as modified above teaches all of the elements of claim 12, as stated above, as well as wherein the second information comprises position information relating to the position of the second object (Para. 60, “In particular embodiments, the device 100 may be operable to identify one or more objects associated with a tennis court, such as court markings and a net. Further, the device 100 may be operable to determine a relative position of one or more of a player or parts of a player to the one or more objects, such as a player's foot relative to baseline. In addition, the device 100 may be operable to determine a relative position of a tennis ball to the one or more objects, such as whether a tennis ball impacts on one side or another side of one of the court markings.”; Ghambir, Para. 59, “The heatmap includes the three-dimensional speed of the ball, a placement of the ball into the one or more zones in the TT table 104A-N, and an indicator that classifies that the placement resulted in a point win or a point loss”).
Regarding claim 14, Marty as modified above teaches all of the elements of claim 12, as stated above, as well as wherein the method further comprises sending the second instruction to another device (Para. 79, “The device communication interfaces may allow the computer to communicate with a plurality of peripheral devices and other remote system components”; Ghambir, Para. 33, “A network 110 communicatively connects the image capturing device 108 to a trajectory tracking server 112. The trajectory tracking server 112 is communicatively connected to the image capturing device 108 and an electronic display screen 114. In some embodiments, the network 110 is at least one of a wired network, a wireless network, a combination of the wired network and the wireless network or the Internet.”).
Regarding claim 15, Marty teaches a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program that, when loaded onto a computer, configures the computer to perform the method according to claim 1 (Para. 205, “Embodiments of the present invention further relate to computer readable media that include executable program instructions for performing recruiting techniques described herein… Examples of non-transitory computer-readable media include”).
Regarding claim 16, the apparatus performs variably the same function as the method of claim 1. It is rejected under the same analysis.
Regarding claim 18, the recited system performs variably the same function as the recited elements in lines 7-9 of claim 16. It is rejected under the same analysis.
Regarding claim 19, Marty as modified teaches all of the elements of claim 1, as stated above, as well as wherein the sporting event is tennis (Abstract, “A system for capturing and analyzing a trajectory of a tennis ball or other object associated with a play of a game of tennis and providing feedback is described.”), and the first condition (i) of the number of predetermined conditions comprises determining that a first player is in an area behind a baseline of a first side of tennis court and the second condition (Para. 59, “The player may stand at the baseline in service position and hold the ball 122 in front of their body in the normal start position before the service toss.”) (ii) of the number of predetermined conditions comprises determining that a second player is positioned on a second side of the tennis court opposite the first player (Para. 160, “In addition, an assessment of the participant's ability to make appropriate strategic shot-choice decisions can be made given the parameters of the oncoming ball (real or virtual), the opponent's position/capability and the participant's position.”; Ghambir; Para. 44, “After the ball is serviced by a player 106A, the ball is immediately localized by performing a global search in the 2D media-content for a colored streak of an expected dimension and locating a region closer to a player associated with servicing the ball… For identifying a start of a service in the foreground TT game in the background-subtracted media-content, the global search may be combined with human pose models to ensure that the ball that is associated with the foreground TT game is localized and not some other ball in the 2D media-content.”, Player pose is considered when determining a start event, and both players necessarily will be on either side of a baseline (or table) when preparing to start a game. Also see Para. 54, “classify the actions into the following classes including, but not limited to (a) Player(s) idle, (b) Player(s) ready to serve, (c) Service, (d) Backhand shot, and (e) Forehand shot.”, where player actions can be classified. One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that in order for a tennis game to start, both players need to be properly positioned, leaving it obvious that the methods of Marty and Ghambir consider the players positions as a condition for a start event).
Regarding claim 20, Marty as modified teaches all of the elements of claim 1, as stated above, as well as wherein the sporting projectile is a tennis ball (Abstract, “A system for capturing and analyzing a trajectory of a tennis ball or other object associated with a play of a game of tennis and providing feedback is described.”), and the third condition (iii) of the number of predetermined conditions comprises determining that the first player is in a predetermined serving pose associated with a service procedure of the tennis ball (Ghambir; Para. 54, “classify the actions into the following classes including, but not limited to (a) Player(s) idle, (b) Player(s) ready to serve, (c) Service, (d) Backhand shot, and (e) Forehand shot.”).
Regarding claim 21, Marty as modified teaches all of the elements of claim 1, as stated above, as well as wherein the fourth condition (iv) of the number of predetermined conditions comprises determining that the second player is in a predetermined receiving pose associated with a receiving a serve of the first player (Ghambir; Para. 44, “For identifying a start of a service in the foreground TT game in the background-subtracted media-content, the global search may be combined with human pose models to ensure that the ball that is associated with the foreground TT game is localized and not some other ball in the 2D media-content”, Human pose models are disclosed, indicating the usage of both player positions when identifying a start of service. Also see Para. 54, “classify the actions into the following classes including, but not limited to (a) Player(s) idle, (b) Player(s) ready to serve, (c) Service, (d) Backhand shot, and (e) Forehand shot.”, where a “player ready to serve” and “Service” are described as separate actions, indicating that both the pose of the server and the receiver are utilized when identifying a start of service).
Regarding claim 22, Marty as modified teaches all of the elements of claim 1, as stated above, as well as wherein the determining that the start event has occurred comprises determining that each of the first, second, third, and fourth conditions are met (See analysis of claims 19-21, Ghambir discloses using position information from human pose models that are associated with the game being tracked. They also disclose classifying player actions like being ready to serve. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize the advantage of utilizing player position information (such as being positioned behind a baseline/table) and player pose information (such as a serving pose or receiving pose) to identify a start event. The start event in tennis (or table tennis) is consistent and easy to predict, leaving it obvious that the disclosed position and pose information of Ghambir is used to identify a start event, as it allows for more robust and accurate tracking of the sporting projectile).
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 DAVID A WAMBST whose telephone number is (703)756-1750. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-6:30 EST.
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/DAVID ALEXANDER WAMBST/Examiner, Art Unit 2663
/GREGORY A MORSE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2698