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 . The Amendment filed 10 June, 2026 (hereinafter “the Amendment’) has been entered and considered. Claims 1, 5-6, 10-11, 13-15, and 17 have been amended. Claims 17-20 are rejected. Claims 1-3, 5-16 and 21 are allowable. Claim 4 has been cancelled. All modifications to the rejection set forth in the present action were necessitated by Applicants’ claim amendments; accordingly, this action is made final.
Remarks
§112(b) Rejections
1. The rejections under §112(b) are withdrawn in view of the amendments.
Prior Art Rejections
2. On pages 10-11 of the Amendment, the Applicant contends that Saphier does not teach or disclose all of the features of newly amended independent claims 1, 14, and 17. The Examiner agrees that the prior art of record does not teach or disclose each and every feature of independent claims 1 and 14; However, claim 17 does not contain all of the features that are also within claims 1 and 14 that overcome the prior art, and remains rejected. See modification to the rejection below.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
3. Claims 17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20210321872 A1: Ofer Saphier et al., (herein after “Saphier”).
Regarding claim 17, An intraoral scanning system (Saphier, §Abstract: “A method of intraoral scanning includes receiving a first one or more intraoral scans of a patient's oral cavity”), comprising:
an intraoral scanner (Saphier, P[0028]: “ a system comprises: an intraoral scanner to generate the one or more intraoral scans”); and
a computing device (Saphier, P[0028]: “ and a computing device connected to the intraoral scan via a wired or wireless connection, the computing device to perform the method”), wherein the computing device is to:
receive a plurality of intraoral scans of a dental site from the intraoral scanner during an intraoral scanning session (Saphier, P[0029]: “ receiving a first one or more intraoral scans of a patient's oral cavity”);
determine a quality score for each point of a plurality of points in one or more of the plurality of intraoral scans, wherein the quality score for a point of the plurality of points represents at least one of an error or a confidence associated with that point (Saphier, P[0478]: “Each quality score may be based on a cost value for the dental object (or a segment of the dental object) as computed using a cost function, and the dental object quality scores may be compared to a quality threshold to determine which dental class to assign to a point.”, where a lower quality score is associated with higher error for that point.);
generate a three-dimensional (3D) surface based on the plurality of points from the one or more of the plurality of intraoral scans (Saphier, P[0029]: “automatically generating a first three-dimensional surface of the first one of the upper dental arch or the lower dental arch using the first one or more intraoral scans”);
determine a first surface quality score for a first region of the 3D surface based at least in part on a) a quantity of points, from the plurality of points, that are associated with the first region and b) quality scores of the points that are associated with the first region (Saphier, P[0562]: “determine quality ratings for the first 3D surface and the second 3D surface, and use the quality ratings to determine which 3D surface to use in generating a 3D model or in updating a previously generated 3D model. Quality ratings may be determined for different regions or parts of the first 3D surface and the second 3D surface. Quality ratings may be determined using multiple criteria, such as number of data points (e.g., density of a point cloud), existence, number and/or size of voids, angle of scanner to 3D surface, uncertainty associated with registration between scans in a 3D surface, amount of moving tissue, gum tissue and/or other objects obscuring the preparation tooth (e.g., obscuring the margin line), a cost function value, and so on.”); and
output a view of the 3D surface to a display, wherein the first region of the 3D surface is shown with a first visualization associated with the first surface quality score (Saphier, P[0573]: “Processing logic may mark such surfaces (or portions of surfaces) that have low quality values on the 3D model. For example, the surface quality scores for one or more surface portions may be compared to a quality threshold. Any surfaces (or surface portions) having surface quality scores that are below the quality threshold may be marked or highlighted.”, and see Fig. 7, which shows the process generates the 3D surface from the intraoral scanning and shows that the process of updating the scanned models is iterative.).
Regarding claim 19, wherein the computing device is further to:
determine a first roughness and a first resolution associated with the first region of the 3D surface (Saphier, P[0125]: “receiving a second intraoral scan generated by the intraoral scanner; determining distances of points depicted in the second intraoral scan from the probe of the intraoral scanner; determining those points in the second intraoral scan having a distance that is less than or equal to the distance threshold; comparing those points in the second intraoral scan having distances that are less than or equal to the distance threshold to those points in the intraoral scan having distances that are less than or equal to the distance threshold; and determining, based on the comparing, points that have distances that are less than or equal to the distance threshold in both the intraoral scan and the second intraoral scan; wherein the one or more criteria comprise a criterion that the amount of points that have distances that are less than or equal to the distance threshold are shared by a plurality of intraoral scans.”, where the Specification of the present Application describes roughness in P[0041]: “the first roughness is determined based on distances between points from one or more intraoral scans of the plurality of intraoral scans”);
wherein the first surface quality score (Saphier, P[0133]: “for each segment of the one or more segments, determining a first quality rating of the segment if the first three-dimensional surface is used”) is determined based at least in part on the first roughness and the first resolution (Saphier, P[0295]: “intraoral scan application 115 analyzes a generated 3D surface or 3D model and determines one or more quality ratings for the 3D model or surface.”, therefore, the quality rating is based on the resolution as well, P[0035]: “the three-dimensional model comprises a single variable resolution three-dimensional surface, wherein the first portion of the single variable resolution three-dimensional surface has the first resolution and the second portion of the variable resolution three-dimensional surface has the second resolution.”).
Regarding claim 20, wherein: the first resolution is determined based at least in part on the quantity of points that are associated with the first region, where the resolution is directly related to the quantity of data points, where more data points equals higher resolution, (Saphier, P[0562]: “determine quality ratings for the first 3D surface and the second 3D surface, and use the quality ratings to determine which 3D surface to use in generating a 3D model or in updating a previously generated 3D model. Quality ratings may be determined for different regions or parts of the first 3D surface and the second 3D surface. Quality ratings may be determined using multiple criteria, such as number of data points (e.g., density of a point cloud), existence, number and/or size of voids, angle of scanner to 3D surface, uncertainty associated with registration between scans in a 3D surface, amount of moving tissue, gum tissue and/or other objects obscuring the preparation tooth (e.g., obscuring the margin line), a cost function value, and so on.”).; and
the first roughness is determined based on distances between the points associated with the first region and nearest points on the 3D surface (Saphier, P[0125]: “receiving a second intraoral scan generated by the intraoral scanner; determining distances of points depicted in the second intraoral scan from the probe of the intraoral scanner; determining those points in the second intraoral scan having a distance that is less than or equal to the distance threshold; comparing those points in the second intraoral scan having distances that are less than or equal to the distance threshold to those points in the intraoral scan having distances that are less than or equal to the distance threshold; and determining, based on the comparing, points that have distances that are less than or equal to the distance threshold in both the intraoral scan and the second intraoral scan; wherein the one or more criteria comprise a criterion that the amount of points that have distances that are less than or equal to the distance threshold are shared by a plurality of intraoral scans.”, where the Specification of the present Application describes roughness in P[0041]: “the first roughness is determined based on distances between points from one or more intraoral scans of the plurality of intraoral scans”).
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.
4. Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Saphier in view of US 20210059796 A1: Assaf Weiss et al., (herein after “Weiss”).
Regarding claim 18, wherein the computing device is further to:
input data for the plurality of points from the one or more of the plurality of intraoral scans into a trained machine learning model (Saphier, uses a trained model for classification that uses the plurality of points from the scans, P[0007]: “comprises inputting the first one or more intraoral scans into a machine learning model that has been trained to classify intraoral scans”), wherein the trained machine learning model outputs the quality score for each of the plurality of points. Saphier does not explicitly disclose that their machine learning model is for determining a quality score.
However, Weiss discloses utilizing a machine learning model to determine quality scores, P[0011]: “the trained machine learning model further outputs an indication for at least a section of the margin line as to whether the section of the margin line depicted in the image is a high quality margin line or a low quality margin line.”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Saphier to utilize the machine learning model to determine and provide a quality score/rating, as taught by Weiss, to arrive at the claimed invention discussed above. Such a modification is the result of combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results. It is predictable that the proposed modification would have reduced the amount of time taken to provide a quality rating by utilizing a MLM rather than a person manually providing the values, which increases the speed at which the process is completed.
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claims 1-3, 5-16, and 21 are allowed.
Conclusion
6. 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.
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/TY MITCHELL BEATTY/Examiner, Art Unit 2663
/GREGORY A MORSE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2698
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