DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
Applicants’ response to the last Office Action, filed on 04/27/2026 has been entered and made of record.
In view of the Applicant’s amendments, the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112 of claims 5, 6, 10, 13, and 14 are expressly withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 04/27/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In response to Applicant’s argument that the instant application is directed to a non-contrastive unsupervised learning framework, which distinguishes it from both supervised methods and contrastive unsupervised methods, the Examiner respectfully notes that this is not reflected in the claims. Specifically, Examiner notes that while claims 1 and 9 disclose a method for non-contrastive unsupervised learning of a physiological signal from a video stream in the preamble, this terminology is not tied into the body of the claims (or any of the dependent claims), thus, Examiner has not interpreted this terminology to be limiting to the body of the claims. Examiner suggests amending the limitation of a non-contrastive unsupervised learning of a physiological signal into the body of independent claims 1 and 9. In addition, in response to Applicant’s amendment of the captured video stream being unlabeled (in claims 1 and 9), Examiner notes that, in Chen et al., when the video stream of the subject is captured, the video stream is unlabeled (Para. 0076 lines 1-2, 0082 lines 1-3, "video information" "multiple frames of images"), thus, Examiner maintains that Chen et al. still discloses the limitations of claims 1 and 9.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 10 recites “video steam” which Examiner suggests amending to “video stream”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 9 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 13 recites “video steam” which Examiner suggests amending to “video stream”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 17 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 3 recites “a physiological signal detection function” which Examiner suggests amending to “the physiological signal detection function”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-6 and 9-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chen et al. (CN 113397516, see translated version).
With regards to claim 9, Chen et al. discloses a system for non-contrastive unsupervised learning of a physiological signal from a video stream, the system comprising:
a processor (Para. 0110 lines 1-4, "control terminal" "computer"); and
a memory storing one or more programs for execution by the processor, the one or more programs including instructions (Para. 0034 lines 1-2, 0108 lines 1-2, "control terminal" "storage unit") for:
capturing the video stream of a subject, the video stream being unlabeled and including a sequence of frames (Para. 0076 lines 1-2, 0082 lines 1-3, "video information" "multiple frames of images");
processing each frame of the video stream to update a physiological signal detection function (Para. 0078 lines 1-2, 0085 lines 1-2, 0086 lines 1-2, 0104 lines 1-3, "each frame" "train" "optimize" "deep learning model");
determining the physiological signal of the subject from the video stream (Para. 0098 lines 1-2, "heart rate estimation"); and
applying the updated physiological signal detection function to a subsequent video steam (Para. 0079 line 1, 0080 lines 1-2, 0107 lines 1-2, 0108 lines 1-4, "video information to be detected").
With regards to claim 10, Chen et al. discloses the system according to claim 9, wherein the video stream includes one or more of a visible-light video stream (Para. 0076 lines 1-2, 0082 lines 1-3, "video"), a near-infrared video stream, a longwave-infrared video stream, a thermal video stream, and an audio stream of the subject.
With regards to claim 11, Chen et al. discloses the system according to claim 9, the physiological signal includes at least one of pulse rate, blood pressure, or eye blink rate (Para. 0080 lines 1-2, 0098 lines 1-2, "heart rate").
With regards to claim 12, Chen et al. discloses the system according to claim 9, wherein the physiological signal includes at least one of pulse rate or voice frequency (Para. 0080 lines 1-2, 0098 lines 1-2, "heart rate").
With regards to claim 13, Chen et al. discloses the system according to claim 9, further comprising cropping each frame of the video stream to encapsulate a region of interest that includes one or more of a face, cheek, forehead, or an eye (Para. 0087 lines 1-7, 0090 lines 1-2, "facial region").
With regards to claim 14, Chen et al. discloses the system according to claim 13, wherein the region of interest includes two or more body parts (Para. 0087 lines 1-7, 0090 lines 1-2, Fig. 3, "facial region", where the facial region includes at least two body parts on the face).
With regards to claims 1-6, they recite the functions of the apparatus of claims 9-14, respectively, as processes. Thus, the analyses in rejecting claims 9-14 are equally applicable to claims 1-6, respectively.
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) 7, 8, 15, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (CN 113397516, see translated version) in view of Fan et al. (CN 106580294, see translated version).
With regards to claim 15, Chen et al. discloses the system according to claim 9.
Chen et al. does not explicitly teach further comprising: combining at least two of a visible-light video stream, a near-infrared video stream, and a thermal video stream into a fused video stream.
However, Fan et al. teaches the concept of combining visible-light, near-infrared, and thermal video streams into a fused video stream in order to more accurately determine physiological signals (Para. 0014 lines 1-5, 0015 lines 1-4, 0016 lines 1-3, 0017 lines 1-3, 0083 lines 1-2, 0085 lines 1-2, "data fusion").
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the concept of combining visible-light, near-infrared, and thermal video streams into a fused video stream as taught by Fan et al. into the system of Chen et al. The motivation for this would be to more accurately determine the physiological signal.
With regards to claim 16, the combination of Chen et al. and Fan et al. discloses the system according to claim 15, wherein the visible-light video stream, the near- infrared video stream, and/or the thermal video stream are combined according to a synchronization device (Fan et al.: Para. 0077 lines 1-5, 0078 lines 1-2, 085 lines 1-2, 0089 lines 7-8, "control terminal").
With regards to claims 7 and 8, they recite the functions of the apparatus of claims 15 and 16, respectively, as processes. Thus, the analyses in rejecting claims 15 and 16 are equally applicable to claims 7 and 8, respectively.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 17 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
With regards to claim 17, Chen et al. (CN 113397516) discloses processing each frame of the video stream to update a physiological signal detection function by training a deep learning model, however, the training is not performed by leveraging periodic signal priors and a non-contrastive loss function to update weights of the deep learning model without ground-truth labels. Dumpala et al. (US 2023/0281456) discloses the process of performing non-contrastive unsupervised learning of an audio signal from a video stream, however, there is no mention of leveraging periodic signal priors to update weights of the physiological signal detection function. Thus, while different prior arts disclose parts of the claim, none of the prior arts disclose or have reasonable motivation to combine to disclose all of the limitations of the claim as a whole.
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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CAROL W CHAN whose telephone number is (571)272-5766. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30-3:30 M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sumati Lefkowitz can be reached at (571) 272-3638. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CAROL W CHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2672
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