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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/29/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-6, 9-16, 19-21 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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, 10-16, 20-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Workman et al. (US2024/0161310) in view of Huntley (US2013/0171304) and Luis Alonso et al. (US2023/0213200).
To claim 1, Workman teach a cooking appliance defining a vertical direction, a lateral direction, and a transverse direction, the cooking appliance comprising:
a cooktop comprising a plurality of heating zones, each heating zone heated by at least one heating element; an image capture device directed toward the cooktop (Fig. 2; paragraph 0012, 0019, 0036, all or some of these UIs may be provided on a display that is integrated with cameras and hardware, for example integrated in a range hood, all or some of this UI may be provided for display on a connected computing device, such as on a smartphone, TV, tablet, smartwatch, etc.); and
a controller operably connected to the image capture device and the at least one heating element, wherein the controller is configured to perform an operation, the operation comprising:
receiving one or more inputs relating to a cooking operation (paragraph 0011);
receiving an image signal of the cooktop via the image capture device after receiving the one or more inputs, the image signal comprising a cookware item (Fig. 5, paragraphs 0011, 0017, 0033-0037, operation of camera would obviously be in response to either manual or computerized input);
identifying a size of the cookware item in the received image signal (paragraph 0015);
adjusting one or more parameters of the cooking operation based on the identified size of the cookware item (Fig. 2; paragraphs 0016, 0018, 0033-0035, cookware tracking and event detection may be used to automatically generate recipes for a user, wherein size identification would be a detected event, wherein recipe would obviously comprise cooking operation; page 8, claim 18, feedback comprises instruction to adjust a setting associated with the cooking surface); and
initiating the cooking operation based on the one or more adjusted parameters (Fig. 5; paragraphs 0034-0038).
But, Workman do not expressly disclose a feedback controlled closed-loop cooking operation comprising a set of controller gains associated with a power level of the at least one heating element, the set of controller gains comprising a proportional gain value, an integral gain value, and a derivative gain value; adjusting at least one of the proportional gain value, the integral value, or the derivative gain value.
In further said obviousness above, Huntley teach a computerized system for performing functions for culinary interaction, wherein the computerized system identifies a size of cookware thru captured image (paragraphs 0022, 0042, 0044) and adjusts the heat on the heating element underneath based on identified cookware size (paragraphs 0026-0027, 0042, 0055, control a temperature for a stove top heating element associated with the utensil based on the determining of the size and type of utensil and the action), which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate into the apparatus of Workman, in order to provide detail on adjusting cooking operation.
Luis Alonso teach a food cooking unit with automatic regulation (abstract; Figs. 4A-B), comprising a feedback controlled closed-loop cooking operation comprising a set of controller gains associated with a power level of the at least one heating element, the set of controller gains comprising a proportional gain value, an integral gain value, and a derivative gain value (paragraph 0145, a proportional, integral and derivative controller configured to regulate the regulating electrovalves, adapting its flow rate, increasing it if it is below a target temperature or threshold value referenced by the food monitoring sensor, or decreasing it if it exceeds the mentioned target temperature), wherein the control device applies a regulation program adapted to detected cookware size (paragraphs 0053, 0064).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate teaching of Luis Alonso into the apparatus of Workman and Huntley, in order to further implementation of adaptive cooking control operation.
To claim 11, Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach a method of operating a cooking appliance, the cooking appliance comprising a plurality of heating zones, each heating zone selectively heated by at least one heating element, and an image capture device directed toward the plurality of heating zones (as explained in response to claim 1 above).
To claim 21, Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach a cooking appliance defining a vertical direction, a lateral direction, and a transverse direction (as explained in response to claim 1 above).
To claims 2 and 12. Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach claims 1 and 11.
Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach wherein the image capture device is a camera positioned above the cooktop along the vertical direction (Workman, Fig. 5).
To claims 3 and 13, Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach claims 1 and 11.
Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach wherein receiving the one or more inputs relating to the cooking operation comprises: receiving at least one of a set cooking temperature input, a food item input, a recipe input, a cooking method input, or a selected heating zone input (Workman, paragraphs 0035-0038).
To claims 4 and 14, Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach claims 1 and 11.
Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach wherein identifying the size of the cookware item comprises:
analyzing, via one or more machine learning algorithms, the received image signal comprising the cookware item; and determining a diameter of the cookware item via the received image signal analysis (Huntley, paragraph 0026).
To claims 5 and 15, Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach claims 4 and 11.
Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach wherein identifying the size of the cookware item further comprises: determining a heating zone of the plurality of heating zones in which the cookware item is located (Workman, paragraphs 0015-0018).
To claims 6 and 16, Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach claims 1 and 11.
Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach wherein initiating the cooking operation comprises:
directing the at least one heating element of a selected heating zone according to the at least one of the adjusted proportional gain value, the integral gain value, or the derivative gain value (Workman, paragraph 0018; Huntley, paragraph 0042; Luis Alonso, paragraph 0145).
To claims 10 and 20, Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach claims 1 and 11.
Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach wherein the operation further comprises: storing the identified size of the cookware item within a memory of the controller (obvious as temporary storing for further processing, e.g., comparing).
Claim(s) 9, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Workman et al. (US2024/0161310) in view of Huntley (US2013/0171304), Luis Alonso et al. (US2023/0213200) and Fujita et al. (WO2017033406).
To claims 9 and 19, Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso teach claims 1 and 11.
Though Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso do not expressly disclose wherein the operation further comprises: determining a distance between the image capture device and the cooktop after receiving the one or more inputs relating to the cooking operation; and incorporating a size adjustment to the identified size of the cookware item in response to determining the distance between the image capture device and the cooktop (Workman, paragraph 0015, determining the size of the identified cookware items in the image; Huntley, paragraphs 0022, determining a size and type of the cooking utensil from the image, paragraph 0026, determine a size, thickness, diameter and type of the cooking utensil from the input data, paragraphs 0042, 0044, object recognition software is also used to identify the utensils, cookware and sizes; wherein it’s well-known in the art that distance between camera and captured object plays a role in determining size of said captured object, e.g., cookware).
Fujita teach a cooking system having a camera installed on top of a cooking appliance (Fig. 1), comprises: determining a distance between the image capture device and the cooktop after receiving the one or more inputs relating to the cooking operation; and incorporating a size adjustment to the identified size of the cookware item in response to determining the distance between the image capture device and the cooktop (Fig. 2, page 19, distance between the camera and the top plate of the cooking appliance is adjustable, which makes it necessary to adjust an identified size of cooking object in response to calculated distance between the camera and the top plate), which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate into the apparatus and method of Workman, Huntley and Luis Alonso, in order to calibrate size identification for high accuracy.
Claim(s) 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Workman et al. (US2024/0161310) in view of Huntley (US2013/0171304).
To claim 21, Workman and Huntley teach a cooking appliance defining a vertical direction, a lateral direction, and a transverse direction (as explained in response to claim 1 above).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHIYU LU whose telephone number is (571)272-2837. The examiner can normally be reached Weekdays: 8:30AM - 5:00PM.
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ZHIYU . LU
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2669
/ZHIYU LU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665 February 5, 2026