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
Arguments are moot in view of new grounds of rejection.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-5, 7, 8, 12-16, 18, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamaguchi (US 20240251061 A1) in view of Kundu (US 12169971 B2)
Regarding claim 1, Yamaguchi discloses:
1. A self-service point-of-sale terminal (fig. 3 13), comprising: a control unit configured to register an item in a sales transaction (paragraph 28); a first display unit facing a customer operating the terminal in the sales transaction (fig. 7 S11); a second display unit facing the customer operating the terminal in the sales transaction (fig. 7 P21); and a peripheral interface connected to the control unit and configured to receive video of the customer operating the terminal from a camera (fig. 3, abstract), wherein the control unit is configured to: cause the first display unit to display information about the registered item (fig. 7 S11), and cause the second display unit to display at least a part of the video received by the peripheral interface (fig. 7 P21).
Yamaguchi fails to disclose and Kundu discloses:
1) a communication interface connectable to an attendant terminal (fig. 1 32)
2) the control unit configured to: identify an unauthorized action by the customer operating the terminal based on analysis of the received video (column 28 claim 16 onward detect suspicious activity)
3) the control unit configured to: extract a still image of the identified unauthorized action from the received video (column 28 claim 16 time-stamped sequence of still images)
4) the control unit configured to: and cause a notification to be transmitted to the attendant terminal, the notification indicating the unauthorized action has been identified and a time of the identified unauthorized action, the notification including the extracted still image of the identified unauthorized action (column 28 claim 16 time-stamped sequence of images depicting suspicious activity).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine this teaching with Yamaguchi by flagging suspicious activity to security attendants. The motivation for the combination is fraud mitigation (see background).
Regarding claim 2, Yamaguchi discloses: 2, The self-service point-of-sale terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit causes the second display unit to display all of the video received by the peripheral interface in real time (paragraph 30).
Regarding claim 3, Yamaguchi discloses:
3. The self-service point-of-sale terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is further configured to: cause a video clip corresponding to the time of the identified unauthorized action to be extracted from the received video (paragraph 70).
Regarding claim 4, Yamaguchi discloses:
4, The self-service point-of-sale terminal according to claim 3, wherein the control unit is further configured to: cause the video clip to be displayed on at least one of the first and second display units (paragraph 70).
Regarding claim 5, Yamaguchi discloses:
5. The self-service point-of-sale terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is further configured to: cause a message to be displayed on at least one of the first and second display units, the message indicating the unauthorized action has been identified (fig. 11 M1).
Regarding claim 7, Yamaguchi as modified fails to disclose and Kundu discloses the control unit further configured to: cause a video clip corresponding to the time of the identified unauthorized action to be extracted from the received video and the video clip is transmitted with the notification to the attendant terminal (column 28 claim 16 time-stamped sequence of images depicting suspicious activity). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine this teaching with Yamaguchi by flagging suspicious activity to security attendants. The motivation for the combination is fraud mitigation (see background).
Regarding claim 8, Yamaguchi discloses: 8. The self-service point-of-sale terminal according to claim 7, wherein the control unit is further configured to: cause the video clip to be displayed on at least one of the first and second display units (fig. 11 P51).
Claims 12-16, 18, 19 are rejected for the same reasons as claims 1-5, 7, 8.
Claim(s) 9 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamaguchi in view of Kundu and further in view of Farrow (US 20180096567 A1)
Regarding claim 9, Yamaguchi as modified fails to disclose the first and second units being separate. However in an analogous art, Farrow discloses a self checkout with first and second display units (fig. 7, 102, paragraph 32). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine this teaching with Yamaguchi by having multiple displays. The motivation for the combination is improved loss prevention (paragraph 54).
Claim 20 is rejected for the same reasons as above.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamaguchi in view of Kundu as applied to claim 1 and further in view of Migdal (US 20180084227 A1).
Regarding claim 10, Yamaguchi as modified fails to disclose and Migdal discloses:
10. The self-service point-of-sale terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is further configured to: identify an unauthorized action by the customer operating the terminal based on analysis of the received video in conjunction with operating event information related to the operation of the terminal by the customer (paragraph 49).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine this teaching with Yamaguchi as modified by providing the suspicious activity video to an attendant for evaluation. The motivation for the combination is to reduce loss at a store (paragraph 83).
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamaguchi in view of Kundu and Migdal as applied to claim 10 and further in view of Wen (US 20210183212 A1).
Regarding claim 11, Yamaguchi as modified fails to disclose and Wen discloses:
11. The self-service point-of-sale terminal according to claim 10, wherein the control unit performs skeleton analysis on the received video and compares skeletal movements obtained by the skeleton analysis to stored skeletal movements for known unauthorized action types (paragraph 66).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine this teaching with Yamaguchi as modified by tracking the user to detect skip scanning. The motivation for the combination is to reduce costs of self checkout (paragraph 5).
Claim(s) 21 and 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamaguchi in view of Kundu and further in view of Costello (US 20230095391 A1).
Regarding claim 21 and 22, Yamaguchi as modified fails to disclose and Costello discloses a control unit and associated method comprising:
Receiving a cancellation operation by an attendant to indicate the identified unauthorized action has been corrected or determined by the attendant to have been identified in error; and erasing the message displayed on the at least one of the first and second display units after receiving the cancellation operation (paragraph 30). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to remotely remove interrupts based on attendant actions on an attendant terminal. The motivation for the combination is improved self checkout terminal management (Background).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Saitoh (US 20230043615 A1) discloses a self checkout terminal including a video of the terminal in the UI.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 NATHAN A MITCHELL whose telephone number is (571)270-3117. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/NATHAN A MITCHELL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627