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
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03/24/2023 and 08/07/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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) 1-4 and 8-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hatori (WO 2022/091342 A1) (hereinafter rejections rely on provided machine translation) in view of Krasnov (US 2022/0177268 A1).
Regarding claims 1 and 7, Hatori discloses a method and a device for non-contact canceling of a triggered button (e.g. Abstract: cancel a destination floor in the event of a false detection by a non-contact sensor), comprising:
a sensor configured to sense time series data (e.g. Figs. 9 and 20-21 & Abstract & p. 6: non-contact sensor 3 capable of detecting whether human operation exceeds a time threshold and camera 20 capable of capturing images of a human intends to operate the operation panel);
a system module (e.g. Fig. 20: operation panel control device 6) electrically connected to the sensor (e.g. Fig. 20: 3, 20) and configured to:
identify a feature point of a target object in the time series data (e.g. p. 11: camera 20 equipped with TOF sensor for detecting human motion; feature point of a target object is broadly interpreted as the body of the passenger);
determine whether feature point coordinates of the feature point are located in an offset space, wherein the offset space has a spatial offset to a button of an operation panel (e.g. p. 11: determine whether passenger is trying to operate the operation panel based on measured distance and orientation of the passenger; offset space is broadly interpreted as a distance from the non-contact sensor that the elevator considered passenger intends to operate the button);
according to the fact that the offset space overlaps with the first sensing range and the system module determines that the feature point coordinates are located in the offset space for a duration exceeding a second threshold time (e.g. p. 6 and 9: the triggered button is cancelled when a non-contact sensor corresponds to the triggered button is operated for a predetermined time);
an elevator floor controller (e.g. Fig. 20: 1) used for receiving the control signal and canceling the triggering of the button according to the control signal (e.g. p. 3-4: elevator control system 1 determines whether a destination floor is inputted or cancelled based on signal received from operation panel control device 6).
Hatori fails to disclose, but Krasnov teaches:
send a control signal according to the fact that the offset space does not overlap with a first sensing range (e.g. Fig. 3: area within distance d1) and the system module determines that the feature point coordinates are located in the offset space (e.g. Fig. 3: passenger hand 20, 22, 24) for a duration exceeding a first threshold time (e.g. Fig. 3: [0060-0067]: elevator activates a first action when hand is at spatial area 28, which is not overlapped with distance d1 for a predetermined amount of time) or
according to the fact that the offset space overlaps with the first sensing range and the system module determines that the feature point coordinates are located in the offset space for a duration exceeding a second threshold time (e.g. Fig. 3: [0060-0067]: elevator activates a second action when hand is at spatial area 30, which overlaps with distance d1),
wherein the second threshold time is greater than the first threshold time (e.g. [0014]: first and second time may be differ from each other; thus, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date to select any suitable predetermine period of time for the first and the second triggered actions, since Krasnov suggests the first and the second predetermined period of times may be equal or differ from each other, and there is only a finite number of solutions, e.g. equal or one greater than the other, when determining the first and the second predetermined period of times in the invention of Krasnov).
Hatori discloses it is known to select and/or cancel a floor selection by placing a hand near a button, and Krasnov teaches different elevator control actions (e.g. [0086-0087]: floor selection) could be triggered by placing the hand in different distances relative to a button.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to modify the teachings of Hatori to select and/or cancel a floor selection (i.e. different triggered actions) by placing a hand in different distances relative to a floor selection button as taught by Krasnov so as to accurately determine the intention of a passenger in a non-contact button selection operation panel based on hand distance to the panel, since it is merely simple substitutions of one known method with another (i.e. replacing action triggering method of Hatori with Krasnov) and the combination would have yielded only predictable results to one skilled in the art.
Regarding claims 2 and 8, Krasnov teaches determining whether the feature point coordinates are located in the offset space for a duration exceeding the first threshold time or the second threshold time further includes according to a distance weight between the feature point coordinate and the operation panel (e.g. [0014]: first and second time may be differ from each other; thus, different weight according to distance).
Regarding claims 3 and 9, Krasnov teaches the offset space can be a point, a line, a plane, or a three-dimensional space (e.g. Fig. 3: hand position).
Regarding claims 4 and 10, Krasnov teaches a switch unit (e.g. Fig. 3: 26) coupled to the button and the elevator floor controller, wherein sending the control signal further includes communicatively controlling the switch unit through the system module to send the control signal.
Claim(s) 5 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hatori (WO 2022/091342 A1) (hereinafter rejections rely on provided machine translation) in view of Krasnov (US 2022/0177268 A1) as applied to claims 1 and 7 above, and further in view of Lee (KR 20220043728 A).
Regarding claims 5 and 11, Hatori and Krasnov in combination fail to disclose, but Lee teaches identifying the feature point of the target object includes inputting the time series data into a machine learning module of the system module for identification (e.g. Abstract & p. 3-6: machine learning to determine hand position to improve button input accuracy).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Hatori and Krasnov with the teachings of Lee to perform machine learning on hand position or movement detection so as to improve elevator button selection recognition accuracy.
Claim(s) 6 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hatori (WO 2022/091342 A1) (hereinafter rejections rely on provided machine translation) in view of Krasnov (US 2022/0177268 A1) as applied to claims 1 and 7 above, and further in view of Chen et al. (US 2014/0375777 A1).
Regarding claims 6 and 12, Hatori and Krasnov in combination fail to disclose, but Chen teaches the sensor is a 3D sensor for sensing the feature point coordinates of the feature point (e.g. Fig. 1B & [0034]).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings Hatori and Krasnov with the teachings of Chen to replace the sensor with a 3D sensor to improve accuracy in detecting position of an object (e.g. [0059]), since it is merely simple substitutions of one known element with another (i.e. replace a known sensor with another) according to KSR, and the combination would have yielded only predictable results to one skilled in the art.
Conclusion
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/KAWING CHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2846