DETAILED ACTION
This Office action for U.S. Patent Application No. 18/531,154 is responsive to communications filed 27 August 2025, in reply to the Restriction of 17 July 2025.
Claims 1–20 are pending, of which claims 10–20 are withdrawn from consideration.
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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention I, claims 1–9, in the reply filed on 27 August 2025 is acknowledged.
Claims 10–20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 27 August 2025.
Applicant is reminded that upon the cancelation of claims to a non-elected invention, the inventorship must be corrected in compliance with 37 C.F.R. § 1.48(a) if one or more of the currently named inventors is no longer an inventor of at least one claim remaining in the application. A request to correct inventorship under 37 C.F.R. § 1.48(a) must be accompanied by an application data sheet in accordance with 37 C.F.R. § 1.76 that identifies each inventor by his or her legal name and by the processing fee required under 37 C.F.R. § 1.17(i).
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 C.F.R. § 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1–4, 8, and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over US 2021/0335869 A1 (“Kim”) in view of US 6,018,364 A (“Mangelsdorf”).
Kim, directed to image sensing, teaches with respect to claim 1 a method of performing double-correlated digital sampling (D-CDS) operations in an image sensor pixel (¶ 0033, correlated double sampler), comprising:
writing a digital Time-to-Saturation (TTS) value (¶ 0065, pixel signal SIG generated by counting the time for a ramp signal to exceed a threshold) . . . to quantize incident light on one or more photodiodes in the image sensor pixel;
writing a first ADC sample of a floating diffusion (FD) node as a first digital value in the first of the two memory banks;
toggling a transfer gate (TG) switch to transfer charge from the photodiode to the FD node (¶¶ 0069, 0085, 0093; transfer from photodiode to floating diffusion when transfer transistor is turned on);
The claimed invention differs from Kim in that the claimed invention specifies operation with two memory banks. Kim is representative of a correlated double sampler having various claimed image sensor pixel components, but does not teach the claimed memory operation. However, Mangelsdorf, directed to coordinated double sampling, teaches with respect to claim 1:
writing a . . . value to at least one of two memory banks to quantize incident light on one or more photodiodes in the image sensor pixel (7:12–53, Fig. 8a; ping-pong structure of sample and hold circuits that collect the sample values)
enabling a first of the two memory banks for write operations while a second of the two memory banks is disabled for the write operations (id., ping-pong structure);
enabling a second of the two memory banks for the write operations while the first of two memory banks is disabled for the write operations (id., ping-pong structure);
writing a second ADC sample of the FD node as a second digital value in a second of the two memory banks (id., ping-pong structure); and
generating a corrected pixel value that has been corrected for fixed pattern noise (FPN) by adding the first digital value to the second digital value (12:29–36, Fig. 6; averaging the outputs of the ping-pong correlated double sampling structure).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to incorporate the ping-pong sample and hold structure of Mangelsdorf into the Kim image sensor pixels, in order to correct the output of the sampled pixels. Mangelsdorf 11:22–43.
Regarding claim 2, Kim in view of Mangelsdorf teaches the method of claim 1 further comprising:
selectively locking output from a comparator with data retention logic to selectively write operations to the two memory banks (Manglesdorf 7:12–53; switches the control ping-pong sample-and-hold structure).
Regarding claim 3, Kim in view of Mangelsdorf makes obvious the method of claim 1, wherein a sum of the first pixel value and the second pixel value are set to 1023 minus a margin (Manglesdorf 12:29–36, claimed sum is a normalized value of the Manglesdorf average),
wherein the margin is a digital value between a nominal global offset and a minimum value or maximum value of an ADC (Abstract, difference signal at a desired reference level).
Regarding claim 4, Kim in view of Mangelsdorf makes obvious the method of claim 1, wherein a sum of the first pixel value and the second pixel value are set to 511 (Manglesdorf 12:29–36; claimed sum is a normalized value of the Manglesdorf average).
Regarding claim 8, Kim in view of Mangelsdorf makes obvious the method of claim 1 further comprising:
resetting a charge on the photodiode with a shutter switch during a sampling period of the second ADC sample (Kim ¶ 0032, reset control signal controlling reset transistor).
Regarding claim 9, Kim in view of Mangelsdorf makes obvious the method of claim 1, wherein the FD node is decoupled from a charge extension capacitor (CEXT) while writing the first and second ADC samples of the FD node to the two memory banks (Kim Fig. 19, ¶ 0112; dual transistor DT decouples floating diffusion FD from capacitor CC).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim in view of Mangelsdorf as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of EP 2,563,012 B1 (“Nakata”).
Claims 6 and 7 are unrelated to the functionality of the double-correlated digital sampling operations of claim 1, instead reciting a specific structure of a photodiode array on which the sampling may be performed. However, Nakata, directed to an image sensor, teaches with respect to claim 6: the method of claim 1,
wherein the one or more photodiodes include a first photodiode, a second photodiode, a third photodiode, and a fourth photodiode oriented in a 2x2 array (Fig. 17, pixel units 250 and 253 subdivided into four I- and J- filter regions in a 2 x 2 array),
wherein the first photodiode is positioned diagonally to the third photodiode in the 2x2 array [and] the second photodiode is positioned diagonally to the fourth photodiode in the 2x2 array (id., structure of pixel unit 250 or 253),
wherein the first photodiode and the third photodiode are configured to generate monochromatic data [that] includes visible light data and near-infrared (NIR) light data (Figs. 17–18, color filter I regions sensitive to 600-900 nm, that is, orange to near-infrared),
wherein the second photodiode and the fourth photodiode are configured to generate near-infrared (NIR) image data (id., color filter J regions sensitive to 800-1100 nm, that is, near-infrared).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the claimed invention to install the particular architecture of a Kim or Mangelsdorf pixel to the Nakata pixels, with the predictable result of each of these pixels being operable. M.P.E.P. § 2143(I)(A) (combining individual prior art elements by known methods with no change in respective functions to yield predictable results considered obvious).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim, Mangelsdorf, and Nakata as applied to claim 6 above, and further in view of WO 2022/030367 A1 (“Horita”). US 2023/0188859 A1, an English-language equivalent, is used as a translation of Horita. M.P.E.P. § 901.05(II), “It is possible to cite a foreign language specification as a reference, while at the same time citing an English language version of the specification with a later date as a convenient translation if the latter is in fact a translation”.
Claim 7 is directed to combining the NIR and monochromatic image data by adding and subtracting. Nakata at paragraph 0077 teaches combining light entering the different photodiodes to generate a stroboscopic output, but not the claimed subtraction limitation. However, Horita, directed to image capturing, teaches with respect to claim 1:
weighting the NIR image data with a multiplier (Abstract, normalizing a second infrared light signal by multiplying it by a control value);
adding the NIR image to the monochromatic image data to increase a contrast of the NIR image data within a combination of the monochromatic image and the NIR image data (¶ 0028, adding or subtracting RGB and IR signals); and
subtracting the NIR image data from the monochromatic image data to decrease the contrast of the NIR image data within the combination of the monochromatic image and the NIR image data (id.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to incorporate the Horita ability to combine the monochromatic and NIR images by adding and subtracting, in order to produce effective images both in high-luminance and low-luminance environments. Horita ¶¶ 0066–80.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 5 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: Claim 5 specifies operating digital counters for the two ADC samples in opposite directions. Closest prior art Mangelsdorf instead shows the ping-pong sample and hold structures strictly to be parallel in operation.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 2019/0285477 A1
US 2022/0247953 A1
US 2022/0198604 A1
US 2021/0150742 A1
US 2016/0198114 A1
US 2016/0037089 A1
US 6587143 B1
US 5877715 A
WO 2022/051834 A1
The following prior art was found using an Artificial Intelligence assisted search using an internal AI tool that uses the classification of the application under the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system, as well as from the specification, including the claims and abstract, of the application as contextual information. Where possible, English-language equivalents are given, and redundant results within the same patent families are eliminated. See “New Artificial Intelligence Functionality in PE2E Search”, 1504 OG 359 (15 November 2022), “Automated Search Pilot Program”, 90 F.R. 48,161 (8 October 2025).
US 2022/0173181 A1
US 2022/0138497 A1
US 2020/0091254 A1
US 2017/0195597 A1
US 2017/0133443 A1
US 2016/0182079 A1
US 2002/0018392 A
WO 2018/035592 A1
KR 101744761 B1
KR 101620709 B1
CA 2885349 A1
JP 2011501826 A
TW 201035872 A
KR 20060072315 A
KR 20050045624 A
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David N Werner whose telephone number is (571)272-9662. The examiner can normally be reached M--F 7:30--4:00 Central.
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/David N Werner/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487