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 .
Application has non-elected claim 11 and canceled claim 8. Thus, the application has pending claims 1-7, 9-10, and 12-15.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks pages 6-7, filed 04/07/2026, with respect to claim 8 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejection of claim 8 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to amended claims 1 and 14 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. Thus, the new reference of Iyers, in combination with Nipe and ANDO, discloses the amended limitations of claims 1 and 14. As such, this action is made FINAL.
Claim Objections
Claim 1, 5-7, 9-10, and 13-14 objected to because of the following informalities: In claims 1, 5-7, 10 and 14, the limitation “second information” is used before the “first information” is introduced in claim 6. Examiner suggest adjusting the “second information” to be the first, and the “first information” to be the second. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 1-3, 6-7, and 13-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lars Gustav Magnus Nipe US-20210174495-A1, hereinafter Nipe, in further view of TAKAMASA ANDO US-20160138975-A1, hereinafter ANDO, and Krishna Iyer US-10323983-B1.
As per claim 14, Nipe discloses a processing apparatus comprising:a processor (see Nipe ¶19); anda memory in which a computer program that the processor executes is stored (see Nipe ¶19, wherein a memory is disclosed), wherein the computer program causes the processor to execute (see Nipe ¶42, wherein a program is disclosed) acquiring image data of the object including information spectral bands (see Nipe ¶28-30, wherein images of an object are taken, each image representing a spectral band. The spectral profile ranges from 400 nm to 1000 nm, which includes visible light bands and near-infrared);extracting pieces of partial image data from the image data (see Nipe ¶30, wherein each image in the set of images represents a spectral band. See further ¶65-66, wherein the spectral information, i.e., partial image data, from the region of interest is extracted);inspecting the pieces of the partial image data (see Nipe ¶64-65, wherein after the region of interest is identified, all the spectral information, i.e., partial image data, is extracted to determine, as in inspecting, if the pixel is a foreign object); and outputting data representing the inspection (see Nipe ¶71-72 and FIG. 3, wherein the output module assigns a classification label according to a spectral value).
However, while Nipe discloses extracting partial image data corresponding to at least one band, it fails to explicitly disclose where ANDO teaches:acquiring image data of an object including information regarding four or more bands (see ANDO ¶217, wherein an image is generated in each of a plurality of wavelength bands. See further ¶221-222 and FIG. 2A-2B, wherein the target wavelength bands W1 to Wi are included in the target wavelength band W, wherein i is no less than 4);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Nipe’s apparatus by using ANDO’s teaching by including 4 or more bands to the spectral bands in order to more accurately determine image data by using specific spectral bands.
However, while Nipe, in combination with ANDO, discloses partial image data (see Nipe ¶30, wherein each image in the set of images represents a spectral band. See further ¶65-66, wherein the spectral information, i.e., partial image data, from the region of interest is extracted), it fails to explicitly disclose where Iyers teaches:acquiring pieces of second information which correspond one-to-one to regions included in the object, each piece of second information indicating at least one band used for a corresponding one of the regions, the at least one band being included in spectral bands (see Iyer cols. 14-15 lines 54-67 and lines 1-7 and FIG. 9, wherein a reference spectra (or spectrum) for each segment of the object, i.e., second information indicating at least one band, is included in the image data. These spectral bands are a part of a wavelength spectra ranging from infrared and 800 nm to 2000 nm, as disclosed in col. 5 lines 37-45);extracting pieces of partial image data from the image data, the pieces of the partial image data corresponding one-to-one to the pieces of the second information (see Iyers 90, wherein the line segments of the spectroscopic images, i.e., partial image data, correspond to the reference spectra locations of fat, bones, proteins, etc.)
While Iyer does not explicitly disclose four or more bands, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the four or more bands from Nipe, in combination with ANDO, in place of the spectral information of Iyers, as band information is acquired from spectral wavelengths. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Nipe’s, in combination with ANDO, apparatus by using Iyer’s teaching by including second information indicating at least one band to the regions in the object in order to further segment and identify which regions in the object are most identifiable under a certain spectral band.
As per claim 1, the rationale provided in claim 14 is incorporated herein. In addition, the apparatus of claim 14 corresponds to the method of claim 1.
As per claim 2, Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the acquiring of the image data includes acquiring hyperspectral image data representing images of the object for the four or more bands (see Nipe ¶19, wherein a hyperspectral image of the object comprising spectral information is disclosed. Additionally, see ANDO ¶253, wherein the reconstruction into a multi-spectral image (a multispectral image can be a hyperspectral image) uses the 4 or more spectral bands).
As per claim 3, Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the acquiring of the image data includes acquiring compressed image data obtained by compressing image information regarding the object for the four or more bands into one image (see Nipe ¶67, wherein the image data is compressed by generating a mean value of the spectral values (wherein the spectral values comprise the four or more bands). Additionally, see ANDO ¶253, wherein the reconstruction into a multi-spectral image uses the 4 or more spectral bands).
As per claim 6, Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, discloses the method according to claim 1 further comprising: acquiring pieces of first information, the pieces of the first information indicating the regions included in the object, wherein the pieces of the first information correspond one-to-one to the pieces of the second information (see Iyers col. 15 lines 5-7, wherein the locations of the fat/bones/protein, etc. found in the stereoscopic image with the reference spectra and also in the same locations in the image 910), and the pieces of the first information are included in reference information corresponding to a type of the object (see Iyers col. 15 lines 8-28, wherein the fat/bones/proteins, i.e., types of the object, are found in the image and used with the reference information to label, or hatch, the regions).
As per claim 7, Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the pieces of the second information indicate sets of the at least one band (see Iyers col. 15 lines 2-5 and FIG. 9, wherein each of the locations of fat/bones/protein etc. correspond to a reference spectra), and the sets of the at least one band are included in the reference information (see Iyers cols. 14-15 lines 63-67 and lines 1-2 and FIG. 9, wherein the each section, such as fat, bones, proteins, etc., have reference spectrum. Each of these contain a signature spectra as discussed in col. 5 lines 52-54).
As per claim 13, Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, discloses the method according to claim 6, wherein the pieces of the first information are generated by performing image recognition processing on an image of the object, on or in which a foreign object is not present (see Nipe ¶64, wherein object recognition on a selected region of interest is disclosed. See further Nipe ¶79-81, wherein the classification is performed, as in creating, or generating, pieces of information, on that region of interest in order to determine the presence of foreign objects).
As per claim 15, Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the inspecting of the pieces of the partial image data includes inspecting a foreign object on or in the object (see Nipe ¶18-19, wherein the determination of a foreign object on the object using a set of images each comprising spectral features or information, i.e., the partial image data, is disclosed).
Claims 4-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, in further view of TAO ZHOU CN-110441264-A, hereinafter ZHOU.
As per claim 4, Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, fials to explicitly disclose where ZHOU teaches:The method according to claim 3, wherein the extracting of the pieces of the partial image data includes reconstructing, from the compressed image data, the pieces of the partial image data (see ZHOU page 7/19, wherein the spectral sampling data is used to reconstruct the multi-spectral image using compressed sensing (compress sensing uses compression and sampling to reconstruct images). The image sampling unit, which is used to later acquire the spectral sampling data, sets the image resolution and sampling number Mi, which is measured at a frequency band as disclosed on page 5/19, wherein the frequency corresponds to the spectrum).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Nipe’s, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, method by using ZHOU’s teaching by including reconstruction of the partial image data to the compressed image data in order to further obtain the images merged together in a multi-spectral image.
As per claim 5, Nipe, in combination with ANDO, Iyers, and ZHOU, discloses the method according to claim 4, wherein the compressed image data is acquired by imaging the object through a filter array, the filter array has filters arranged two-dimensionally (see ANDO ¶218 and FIG. 1A, wherein the coding element, or filter array, C includes a plurality of regions arranged two-dimensionally. The coding element C can be disposed above an image sensor, which can be a color image sensor S, having a filter and a plurality of light-sensor cells arrayed two-dimensionally as disclosed in ¶246 and FIG. 4), transmission spectra of at least two or more filters among the filters differ from each other (see ANDO ¶218, wherein each region in the plurality of regions has an individually set spectral transmittance), each of the pieces of partial image data is reconstructed using a reconstruction table corresponding to the corresponding piece of second information (see ANDO ¶253-255, wherein the reconstruction includes the spectrally separated images
f
1
to
f
w
, i.e., partial image data, and the matrix of the corresponding elements
f
1
to
f
w
. These spectral separated images are similarly the hyperspectral images 105 of Nipe, wherein each image corresponds to a separate spectral band).
Claims 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, in further view of Romuald PAWLUCZYK US-20220323997-A1, hereinafter Romuald.
As per claim 9, Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, fails to explicitly disclose where Romuald teaches:The method according to claim 6, further comprising: updating the reference information after the type of the object is changed, thereby the pieces of the first information being updated (see Romuald ¶85, wherein each segment of the food product is classified with an associated spectra, i.e., a band. See further ¶121-125 and FIGS. 3-4, wherein each segment, according to its respective spectra, is referred to, or classified as, fat, bones, plastic (which is an impurity), etc., which serves are the different object type. The regions are classified and outlined on the food product using the updated spectrum classification).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Nipe’s, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, method by using Romuald’s teaching by updating the reference information in order to more accurately label and classify the object.
As per claim 10, Nipe, in combination with ANDO, Iyers, and Romuald, discloses the method according to claim 9, wherein the pieces of the second information are updated (see Romuald ¶122 and FIG. 3, wherein the spectrum, which contains at least one band or spectral information, is updated).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, in Ajay Divakaran US-20160063734-A1, hereinafter Ajay.
As per claim 12, Nipe, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, fails to explicitly disclose where Ajay teaches:The method according to claim 6, wherein the object is a processed food product, and the region classification data includes data representing a layout diagram of ingredients of the processed food product (see Ajay ¶82-83 and FIGS. 5A-5B, wherein the processed food product discloses the ingredients and nutritional facts of the food).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Nipe’s, in combination with ANDO and Iyers, method by using Ajay’s teaching by including a diagram of ingredients to the region classification data in order to further determine which foods are including in the image of the object.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bradley Obas Felix whose telephone number is (703)756-1314. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vincent Rudolph can be reached at 5712728243. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BRADLEY O FELIX/Examiner, Art Unit 2671
/VINCENT RUDOLPH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2671
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