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 .
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 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.
Examiner’s Note
This Office Action is in response to application filed on 11/21/2023, where claims 1-23 are currently pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1-3, 5, 6, 9, 16, 20, 22, and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hunt et al., (US 20200384506 A1) (hereinafter Hunt).
Referring to claim 1, Hunt teaches a system for characterizing earthen material in an earthen material processing system having at least one controllable operational parameter affecting processing of the earthen material, the system comprising:
a spectral imager positioned in view of earthen material moving within the earthen material processing system, the spectral imager configured to acquire spectral image data of a spatial scene of the earthen material (¶ [0051], fig. 1A, “In one implementation the ore composition imaging system 100 is integrated after the ore is initially crushed, while it is being transported for further processing. The ore composition imaging system 100 can include an image capture system 102, which records video and/or still images of ore fragments 110 as they travel between two locations in an ore processing facility.” ¶ [0052], “The image data can include, but is not limited to…hyperspectral images”);
a processor in communication with the spectral imager, the processor programmed with a machine learned model that is configured to process the spectral image data to determine an earthen material characteristic of the earthen material based on the spectral image data, the processor outputting a signal based on the earthen material characteristic so determined (¶ [0051], fig. 1A, “The images from the image capture system can then be used as input to a computing system 108 that includes a machine learning model. The machine learning model can determine, using measured parameters of the ore fragments 110 ore characteristics, which can be used to adjust or modify the operation of the processing facility.”); and
the processor in communication with the earthen material processing system determining a recommendation to adjust the operational parameter in response to the signal (¶ [0041], “generating, for display on a user computing device…data indicating an action or decision based on the one or more characteristics of the ore fragments.”)
Referring to claim 2, Hunt further teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the spectral imager is configured to acquire the spectral image data while the earthen material is moving (¶ [0051], fig. 1A, “In one implementation the ore composition imaging system 100 is integrated after the ore is initially crushed, while it is being transported for further processing.”)
Referring to claim 3, Hunt further teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the earthen material processing system includes a conveyor, and the spectral imager is mounted over the conveyor (According to figure 1A, the imaging capture system 102 is mounted over the transport system 114).
Referring to claim 5, Hunt further teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the spectral imager captures successive captures of spectral data that are aggregated by the spectral imager or the processor to form the spectral image data (¶ [0051], “The images from the image capture system can then be used as input to a computing system 108 that includes a machine learning model. The machine learning model can determine, using measured parameters of the ore fragments 110 ore characteristics”).
Referring to claim 6, Hunt further teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the machine learned model includes a convolutional neural network (¶ [0076], “the machine learning model 204 is a convolutional neural network.”)
Referring to claim 9, Hunt further teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the earthen material characteristic is a moisture content of the earthen material (¶ [0010], “In an aspect combinable with any one of the previous aspects, the one or more characteristics includes at least one of…fragment moisture content”).
Referring to claim 16, Hunt further teaches the system of claim 1, further comprising one or more illumination sources positioned and oriented to direct illumination toward the earthen material for reflection by the earthen material to the spectral imager (¶ [0051], fig. 1A, “The ore composition imaging system 100 can optionally include an illumination system 104”).
Referring to claim 20, Hunt further teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the processor in communication with the earthen material processing system automatically adjusts the operational parameter (¶ [0067], figs. 1A-B, “Based on the output of the computing system 108 the ore processing facility can adjust a parameter to optimize the processing of the ore.”)
Regarding claims 22 and 23, these claims recite the method performed by the system of claims 1 and 20 respectively; therefore, the same rationale of rejection is applicable.
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 of this title, 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 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunt as applied to claim 3 above, and in view of Kaartinen et al., (US 20180369829 A1) (hereinafter Kaartinen).
Referring to claim 4, Hunt further teaches the system of claim 3, wherein the conveyor delivers a flow of earthen material to a comminution system of the earthen material processing system (¶ [0058], fig. 1A, “In an example operation of the mineral composition imaging system 100, ore fragments 110 may be, for example, places on a transport system 114 after being comminuted”)
Hunt teaches changing operation parameters of the processing facility in response to the determined characteristics of the ore. However, Hunt does not explicitly teach the controllable operational parameter affecting operation of the comminution system.
Kaartinen teaches the controllable operational parameter affecting operation of the comminution system (¶ [0011], “receiving a particle size characteristic value of the outgoing ore said particle size characteristic value of the outgoing ore being calculated based on said measured particle size data”. ¶ [0012], “calculating ore characteristics data based on said particle size distribution profile and said particle size characteristic value, said ore characteristics data identifying ore characteristics”. ¶ [0013], “controlling the grinding circuit in said comminution process based on said calculated ore characteristics data.” ¶ [0038], “Preferably, said method comprises a step of calculating control value data for controlling a crushing circuit and/or for controlling a grinding circuit.”)
Hunt and Kaartinen are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with interface that determines characteristics of ore (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and Kaartinen before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of controlling the grinding circuit in a comminution process by Kaartinen. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Kaartinen (¶ [0007]-[0013] and [0037]-[0039]), because the function of controlling the grinding circuit in a comminution process does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of controlling the grinding circuit in a comminution process performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to better control the comminution process as suggested by Kaartinen (¶ [0005]).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunt as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Coen et al., (US 20220307971 A1) (hereinafter Coen).
Referring to claim 7, Hunt teaches the system of claim 1. Hunt further teaches performing image enhancement prior to recording of the plurality of images (¶ [0023]). However, Hunt does not explicitly teach preprocess the spectral image data to perform radiometric or geometric corrections prior to processing by the machine learned model.
Coen teaches preprocess the spectral image data to perform radiometric or geometric corrections prior to processing by the machine learned model (¶ [0194], “Preprocessing may include lighting and/or measurement correction step 240. Step 240 may comprise radiometric correction”).
Hunt and Coen are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with interface for capturing and processing spectral images (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and Coen before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of performing radiometric correction preprocessing by Coen. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Coen (¶ [0185]-[0196]), because the function of performing radiometric correction preprocessing does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of performing radiometric correction preprocessing performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to normalizing image values to create uniform basis for spectral signatures as suggested by Coen (¶ [0220]).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunt as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Qiu et al., (CN 114639009 B) (hereinafter Qiu).
Referring to claim 8, Hunt teaches the system of claim 1. However, Hunt does not explicitly teach perform dimensionality reduction on the spectral image data prior to processing by the machine learned model.
Qiu teaches perform dimensionality reduction on the spectral image data prior to processing by the machine learned model (Abstract, “The invention discloses a longan dry variety classification method and device based on hyperspectral image and machine learning, the method comprises: taking multiple different samples of the same variety of longan as a group to perform hyperspectral imaging to obtain a hyperspectral image set; pre-processing the images of all high-spectrum image sets to obtain a longan dry high-spectrum sample set; marking the types of different types of longan dry images in the high spectrum sample set; performing data dimension reduction on the hyperspectral sample set to obtain a data set after dimension reduction; respectively leading the data set after dimension reduction into SVM and KNN learning models to supervise and learn”).
Hunt and Qiu are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with interface for processing captured images (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and Qiu before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of performing dimension reduction by Qiu. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Qiu (pg. 10 lines 7-32), because the function of performing dimension reduction does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of performing dimension reduction performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to reduce training difficult of model as suggested by Qiu (pg. 10 lines12-14).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunt as applied to claim 9 above, and in view of Shumway, (US 20220297133 A1) (hereinafter Shumway).
Referring to claim 10, Hunt teaches the system of claim 9. Hunt further teaches adjusting operation of the ore processing facility based on determining characteristics of the ore fragments (¶ [0011]). However, Hunt does not explicitly teach the earthen material processing system includes at least one mill, and the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes a flow rate of water delivered to the mill and/or a dewatering rate of the mill.
Shumway teaches the earthen material processing system includes at least one mill, and the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes a flow rate of water delivered to the mill and/or a dewatering rate of the mill (¶ [0019], “The present embodiments generally relate to a system to monitor parameters of ball, AG, and SAG mills for grinding particulates, such as ores, while the mill is in operation.” ¶ [0033], “The present invention is designed to provide real time monitoring, real time alarms, and real time information to the distributed control system of the mill, along with client devices connected to a network, enabling the mill to automatically adjust the water feed rates”.)
Hunt and Shumway are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with facilities for processing ore (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and Shumway before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of a mill by Shumway. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Shumway (¶ [0033]), because the function of a mill does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of a mill performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to provide total control of processing of the ore.
Claims 11 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunt as applied to claims 1 and 9 above, and in view of Xu et al., (CN 113310949 A) (hereinafter Xu).
Referring to claim 11, Hunt teaches the system of claim 9. Hunt further teaches determining one or more characteristics of the ore including moisture content (¶ [0010]). However, Hunt does not explicitly teach the earthen material processing system includes at least one dryer, and the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes an increased or decreased drying time within the dryer.
Xu teaches the earthen material processing system includes at least one dryer, and the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes an increased or decreased drying time within the dryer (Pg. 5 lines 5-14, “A TBM tunnel carrying type rock slag mineral identification method based on high spectrum imaging, comprising the following steps: the rock slag generated by TBM is to clean dried; detecting the water content of the surface of the dried rock slag; if the water content is higher than a predetermined value, then drying for the second time”).
Hunt and Xu are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with facilities for processing ore (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and Xu before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of adjusting drying time by Xu. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Xu (pg. 4 line 76-pg. 5 line 22), because the function of adjusting drying time does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of adjusting drying time performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to ensure the moisture content is at a desirable level as suggested by Xu (pg. 5 lines 12-14).
Referring to claim 15, Hunt teaches the system of claim 1. However, Hunt does not explicitly teach the spectral imager is located within a reclaim tunnel of the earthen material processing system.
Xu teaches the spectral imager is located within a reclaim tunnel of the earthen material processing system (Pg. 2 lines 61-65, “The invention claims a TBM tunnel carrying type rock slag mineral identification system and method based on high spectrum imaging, comprising a conveying belt; the conveying belt is orderly provided with…a high spectrum imaging device”).
Hunt and Xu are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with facilities for processing ore (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and Xu before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of providing a high spectrum imaging device in the tunnel by Xu. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Xu (pg. 2 lines 61-75), because the function of providing a high spectrum imaging device in the tunnel does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of providing a high spectrum imaging device in the tunnel performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to ensure quick analyze mineral content information as suggested by Xu (pg. 2 lines 61-75).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunt as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of He et al., (CN 115759816 A) (hereinafter He).
Referring to claim 12, Hunt teaches the system of claim 1. Hunt further teaches determining ore characteristics by a machine learning model. However, Hunt does not explicitly teach the earthen material characteristic determined…is a mineral alteration of the earthen material.
He teaches earthen material characteristic determined…is a mineral alteration of the earthen material (Pg. 2 lines 54-62, “using FieldSpecProFR spectrometer to perform spectrum measurement to the known mountain type gold ore sample, and comparing and analyzing with the typical alteration mineral model, summarizing the mineral combination and alteration characteristic, establishing spectral data set of known mountain type gold and rock and surrounding rock, then using FieldSpecProFR spectrometer to carry out field spectrum measurement in the section of the metallogenic ore, identifying the alteration mineral, establishing alteration mineral with spectral dataset”).
Hunt and He are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with identifying characteristics of material (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and He before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of identifying alteration mineral by He. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by He (pg. 2 lines 51-68), because the function of identifying alteration mineral does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of identifying alteration mineral performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to reduce cost and resources in searching for desired mineral(s) as suggested by He (pg. 2 lines 51-68).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunt in view of He as applied to claim 12 above, and further in view of Shumway, (US 20220297133 A1) (hereinafter Shumway).
Referring to claim 13, Hunt in view of He teach the system of claim 12. However, Hunt in view of He do not explicitly teach the earthen material processing system includes at least one mill, and the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes a grinding media volume of the mill, a rotational speed of the mill, a flow rate of water delivered to the mill, and/or a dewatering rate of the mill.
Shumway teaches the earthen material processing system includes at least one mill, and the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes a grinding media volume of the mill, a rotational speed of the mill, a flow rate of water delivered to the mill, and/or a dewatering rate of the mill (¶ [0006], “computer instructions to instruct the master control processor to provide commands to the distributed control system for the mill to automatically alter at least one of: a speed of the rotatable mill shell rate”).
Hunt, He, and Shumway are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with facilities for processing ore (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt in view of He and Shumway before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of a mill by Shumway. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Shumway (¶ [0004]-[0006]), because the function of a mill does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of a mill performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to provide total control of processing of the ore.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunt as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Kaartinen et al., (US 20180369829 A1) (hereinafter Kaartinen), and He et al., (CN 115759816 A) (hereinafter He).
Referring to claim 14, Hunt further teaches the system of claim 1, wherein:
the earthen material processing system includes a mineral processing system having a comminution system and a concentration system (¶ [0058], “In an example operation of the mineral composition imaging system 100, ore fragments 110 may be, for example, places on a transport system 114 after being comminuted and before sizing or concentration.”);
…the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes a rate of addition of a reagent in the concentration system, the reagent being reactive with one or more desirable minerals in the earthen material (¶ [0058], fig. 1A, “Based on the output of the computing system 108 the ore processing facility can adjust a parameter to optimize the processing of the ore. In some examples, the ore processing facility may change the addition rate of flotation reagents in a froth flotation processes”)
Hunt teaches the spectral imager to capture images of ore fragments. However, Hunt does not explicitly teach the…imager is located before or within the comminution system.
Kaartinen teaches the…imager is located before or within the comminution system (¶ [0007], “The objects of the invention are achieved by a method for controlling a comminution process having a grinding circuit”. ¶ [0008], “measuring 3D reconstruction measurement data for three-dimensional reconstruction of incoming ore to said grinding circuit with an imaging system”. ¶ [0012] calculating ore characteristics data based on said particle size distribution profile and said particle size characteristic value, said ore characteristics data identifying ore characteristics”.)
Hunt and Kaartinen are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with interface that determines characteristics of ore (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and Kaartinen before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of including imager in the comminution system process by Kaartinen. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Kaartinen (¶ [0007]-[0013]), because the function of including imager in the comminution system does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of including imager in the comminution system performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to better control the comminution process as suggested by Kaartinen (¶ [0005]).
Hunt in view of Kaartinen teach the limitations above. Hunt further teaches determine ore characteristics by a machine learning model. However, Hunt in view of Kaartinen do not explicitly teach the earthen material characteristic determined…includes a classification of a mineral alteration of the earthen material.
He teaches the earthen material characteristic determined…includes a classification of a mineral alteration of the earthen material (Pg. 7 lines 41-57, “S7, the high-spectrum remote sensing image data with rich texture information and relatively poor spectrum information uses image classification method based on texture and spectrum information to perform information identification of quartz and alteration mineral closely related to gold, obtaining texture feature information; As shown in FIG. 1, based on texture and spectrum information of the image classification method for texture feature image using texture quantization method based on grey-scale co-occurrence matrix selecting characteristic sample, the high spectrum remote sensing image as main component conversion, extracting the first main component, classifier, performing sample training to the selected characteristic sample and the extracted first main component, obtaining initial lithology classification map, then analyzing the classification effect and precision, selecting average value, variance, contrast, entropy and angle second moment method to calculate the image texture characteristic, identifying and extracting quartz and alteration rock information closely related to the gold.”)
Hunt, Kaartinen, and He are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with identifying characteristics of material (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt in view of Kaartinen and He before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt in view of Kaartinen to incorporate the function of identifying alteration mineral by He. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by He (pg. 7 lines 41-57), because the function of identifying alteration mineral does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of identifying alteration mineral performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to reduce cost and resources in searching for desired mineral(s) as suggested by He (pg. 2 lines 51-68).
Claims 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunt as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Dimitrakis et al., (US 20150314332 A1) (hereinafter Dimitrakis).
Referring to claim 17, Hunt teaches the system of claim 1. Hunt further teaches sorting the ore (¶ [0050]). However, Hunt does not explicitly teach the earthen material processing system includes at least one sorting system located in-line with a feed conveyor, or downstream thereof, and the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes the sorting system sorting to remove earthen material having a low ore grade or representing waste.
Dimitrakis teaches the earthen material processing system includes at least one sorting system located in-line with a feed conveyor, or downstream thereof, and the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes the sorting system sorting to remove earthen material having a low ore grade or representing waste (¶ [0067], “The objective of the method in the embodiment is to identify fragments of mined material, in the form of particles, containing amounts of copper-containing minerals above a certain grade and to sort these particles from the other particles”. ¶ [0078], fig. 2, “An example of a sorting apparatus is shown in FIG. 2. Specifically, a feed material in the form of ore particles that have been crushed by a primary crusher (not shown) to a particle size of 10-25 cm are supplied via a feed assembly 20 onto a conveyor belt 22”. ¶ [0086], “The sorting apparatus 18 comprises a thermal detector 66”.)
Hunt and Dimitrakis are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with processing of ore (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and Dimitrakis before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of sorting apparatus by Dimitrakis. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Dimitrakis (¶ [0078]-[0093]), because the function of sorting apparatus does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of sorting apparatus performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to recover valuable materials as suggested by Dimitrakis (Abstract).
Referring to claim 18, Hunt teaches the system of claim 1. Hunt further teaches sorting the ore (¶ [0050]). However, Hunt does not explicitly teach the earthen material processing system includes at least one sorting system located in-line with a conveyor, or downstream thereof, and the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes the sorting system sorting material into different stockpiles based on a specific alteration and ore composition.
Dimitrakis teaches the earthen material processing system includes at least one sorting system located in-line with a conveyor, or downstream thereof, and the operational parameter automatically adjusted in response to the signal includes the sorting system sorting material into different stockpiles based on a specific alteration and ore composition (¶ [0067], “The embodiment is described in the context of a method of recovering a valuable metal in the form of copper from low grade copper-containing ores in which the copper is present in copper-containing minerals such as chalcopyrite and the ores also contain non-valuable gangue. The objective of the method in the embodiment is to identify fragments of mined material, in the form of particles, containing amounts of copper-containing minerals above a certain grade and to sort these particles from the other particles”. ¶ [0078], fig. 2, “An example of a sorting apparatus is shown in FIG. 2. Specifically, a feed material in the form of ore particles that have been crushed by a primary crusher (not shown) to a particle size of 10-25 cm are supplied via a feed assembly 20 onto a conveyor belt 22”. ¶ [0086], “The sorting apparatus 18 comprises a thermal detector 66”.)
Hunt and Dimitrakis are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with processing of ore (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and Dimitrakis before them to modify the processing facility of Hunt to incorporate the function of sorting apparatus by Dimitrakis. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Dimitrakis (¶ [0078]-[0093]), because the function of sorting apparatus does not depend on the processing facility. That is the function of sorting apparatus performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to recover valuable materials as suggested by Dimitrakis (Abstract).
Referring to claim 19, Hunt teaches the limitations above. However, Hunt does not explicitly teach the specific alteration includes clay composition and abundance, mineralogical composition of the gangue material, and/or mineralogical composition of copper minerals.
Dimitrakis further teaches the specific alteration includes clay composition and abundance, mineralogical composition of the gangue material, and/or mineralogical composition of copper minerals (¶ [0067], “The objective of the method in the embodiment is to identify fragments of mined material, in the form of particles, containing amounts of copper-containing minerals above a certain grade”).
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunt as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Brogger et al., (US 20220334054 A1) (hereinafter Brogger).
Referring to claim 21, Hunt further teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the spectral imager is mounted over a…route to scan a top surface… (¶ [0056], “The ore can be transported via a number of techniques, such as…train/cart and rail, barges”)
Hunt teaches the limitations above. However, Hunt does not explicitly teach haulage truck.
Brogger teaches haulage truck (¶ [0170], figs. 13-14b, “Imaging device 234 captures visual images and multispectral, preferably hyperspectral, images of each truck 222 and 230 as each truck respectively enters the field of view 236 of the imaging device.”)
Hunt and Brogger are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with equipment for carrying objects (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Hunt and Brogger before them to substitute the truck as taught by Brogger for the generic carrier of Hunt. Because both Hunt and Brogger teach methods of transporting objects, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to substitute one known method for the other to achieve the predictable result of object transportation technology. The motivation would have been to pick the mode of transporting objects that best suited for the user’s needs.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
US 20190270122 (Bamber) – discloses system and method of sorting mineral ores.
US 20250041876 (Bagwe) – discloses method of froth flotation of ores.
US 20200276593 (Mueller) – discloses method for operating ore comminution circuit.
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/MONG-SHUNE CHUNG/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2118