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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 8/5/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant has amended the claims and asserted that the prior art does not teach the new claim amendments. The examiner disagrees with the applicant and has addressed the new claim limitations in the below office action. Furthermore, the examiner asserts that the claim limitations are broad and do not define the limits of the pixel region and therefore, an entire imaging system can be broadly viewed as a pixel region since the claim fails to limit the structure of the pixel region or require certain components to be on the same substrate etc. Therefore, the claims are rejected over the prior art.
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.
1: Claim(s) 2-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2015/0350575 A1 Agranov et al in view of CN 106874906 A Guo (For examination purposes the examiner has relied upon the provides English translation.
2: As for Claim 2, Agranov et al depicts in Figure 11 and teaches in Paragraphs [0060, 0062 and 0064] An imaging device comprising: pixel region (element 504 depicted in Figure 5 and in Paragraphs [0041 and 0042]); and a driver (512 and 508) electrically connected to the pixel region (504), wherein the pixel region (can be viewed as the entire imaging system) comprises a pooling module (binning) comprising a plurality of pixels (1104), first circuits (1106 and 1108), wherein the plurality of pixels (1104) each comprise a photoelectric conversion element (element 904 depicted in Figure 9), wherein the first circuits (1106 and 1108) are configured to generate second signals (summed output) by adding first signals (signals output from individual photodiodes 904) obtained by the plurality of pixels (Paragraph [0060]), However, Agranov et al does not teach the determination circuit is configured to determine the largest second signal and generate a third signal by binarizing the largest second signal
Guo teaches on Page 9, and Page 10, Lines 7-11 and Page 11, Lines 1-4 a system for processing captured image data and teaches that it is advantageous when processing captured image data to process the captured image data with a neural network that uses max-pooling to reduce the amount of image data processed in order to improve the speed of image processing and then further process the max-pooled image data in a binarization layer along with other layers in order to perform advanced image processing on captured images.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to perform the advanced image processing using the neural network of Guo on the outputted binned image data of the camera system of Agranov et al in order to enable the camera system to process the captured image data with a neural network that uses max-pooling to reduce the amount of image data processed in order to improve the speed of image processing and then further process the max-pooled image data in a binarization layer along with other layers in order to perform advanced image processing on captured images.
3: As for Claim 3, Agranov et al teaches in Paragraph [0026] and depicts in Figure 2A An electronic device (200) comprising: the imaging device (202 and 204) according to claim 2; and a display device (210).
4: As for Claim 4, Agranov et al depicts in Figure 11 and teaches in Paragraphs [0060, 0062 and 0064] An imaging device comprising: pixel region (element 504 depicted in Figure 5 and in Paragraphs [0041 and 0042]); and a driver (512 and 508) electrically connected to the pixel region (504), wherein the pixel region (can be viewed as the entire imaging system) a pooling module (binning) comprising a plurality of pixels (1104), first circuits (1106 and 1108), wherein the plurality of pixels (1104) each comprise a photoelectric conversion element (element 904 depicted in Figure 9), wherein the first circuits (1106 and 1108) are configured to generate second signals (summed output) by adding first signals (signals output from individual photodiodes 904) obtained by the plurality of pixels (Paragraph [0060]), wherein the first circuits are configured to generate a fourth signal by averaging the second signals (Paragraph [0005 and 0058]). However, Agranov et al does not teach the determination circuit is configured to determine the largest second signal and generate a third signal by binarizing the largest second signal.
Guo teaches on Page 9, and Page 10, Lines 7-11 and Page 11, Lines 1-4 a system for processing captured image data and teaches that it is advantageous when processing captured image data to process the captured image data with a neural network that uses max-pooling to reduce the amount of image data processed in order to improve the speed of image processing and then further process the max-pooled image data in a binarization layer along with other layers in order to perform advanced image processing on captured images.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to perform the advanced image processing using the neural network of Guo on the outputted binned image data of the camera system of Agranov et al in order to enable the camera system to process the captured image data with a neural network that uses max-pooling to reduce the amount of image data processed in order to improve the speed of image processing and then further process the max-pooled image data in a binarization layer along with other layers in order to perform advanced image processing on captured images.
5: As for Claim 5, Agranov et al teaches in Paragraph [0026] and depicts in Figure 2A An electronic device (200) comprising: the imaging device (202 and 204) according to claim 4; and a display device (210).
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 JAMES M HANNETT whose telephone number is (571)272-7309. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 AM-5:00 PM Monday thru Thursday.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Twyler Haskins can be reached at 571-272-7406 The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JAMES M HANNETT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2639
JMH
September 23, 2025