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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 12/09/2025, 03/20/2025, 12/03/2024, 04/10/2024 and 02/21/2024 are being considered by the examiner.
Election/Restrictions
Restriction to one of the following inventions is required under 35 U.S.C. 121:
I. Claim 1-15, 20-22 drawn to system for analyzing a sheet of material, classified in G06V30/412.
II. Claim 16-19, drawn to a component having a pocket, classified in G06V30/1448.
The inventions are independent or distinct, each from the other because:
Inventions 1 and 2 are related as subcombinations disclosed as usable together in a single combination. The subcombinations are distinct if they do not overlap in scope and are not obvious variants, and if it is shown that at least one subcombination is separately usable. In the instant case, subcombination 1 has separate utility such as such that it is capeable of being used without the pocket structure. See MPEP § 806.05(d).
The examiner has required restriction between subcombinations usable together. Where applicant elects a subcombination and claims thereto are subsequently found allowable, any claim(s) depending from or otherwise requiring all the limitations of the allowable subcombination will be examined for patentability in accordance with 37 CFR 1.104. See MPEP § 821.04(a). Applicant is advised that if any claim presented in a divisional application is anticipated by, or includes all the limitations of, a claim that is allowable in the present application, such claim may be subject to provisional statutory and/or nonstatutory double patenting rejections over the claims of the instant application. Restriction for examination purposes as indicated is proper because all the inventions listed in this action are independent or distinct for the reasons given above and there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required because one or more of the following reasons apply:
There is a burden in searching a different field of search that is search for one of the inventions in a manner that is not likely to result in finding art pertinent to the other invention(s) (e.g., searching different classes/subclasses or electronic resources, or employing different search queries), a different field of search is shown”.
The claims are separately classified.
Applicant is advised that the reply to this requirement to be complete must include (i) an election of an invention to be examined even though the requirement may be traversed (37 CFR 1.143) and (ii) identification of the claims encompassing the elected invention.
The election of an invention may be made with or without traverse. To reserve a right to petition, the election must be made with traverse. If the reply does not distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election shall be treated as an election without traverse. Traversal must be presented at the time of election in order to be considered timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are added after the election, applicant must indicate which of these claims are readable upon the elected invention.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the inventions are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the inventions to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the inventions unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other invention.
During a telephone conversation with Amanda O’Donnell on 2/25/2026 a provisional election was made without traverse to prosecute the invention of Group II, claims 16-19. Affirmation of this election must be made by applicant in replying to this Office action. Claims 1-15 and 20-22 are withdrawn from further consideration by the examiner, 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
Applicant is reminded that upon the cancelation of claims to a non-elected invention, the inventorship must be corrected in compliance with 37 CFR 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 CFR 1.48(a) must be accompanied by an application data sheet in accordance with 37 CFR 1.76 that identifies each inventor by his or her legal name and by the processing fee required under 37 CFR 1.17(i).
Claim Objections
Claim 16 objected to because of the following informalities: “the plurality of subregions” should read -a plurality of subregions to remove antecedent basis issues. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 19 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Re claim 19 the language “wherein the detected marking includes a detected indicator marked by a user.” Is confusing the claim appear to attempt to further define a detected marking function however but there is no detected marking previously claimed, nor is any claimed element of the apparatus seemingly capable of detecting markings; the current apparatus contains only a component with a pocket structure and does not claim a processor. It is unclear how this element is intended to limit the structure of the claimed apparatus. Art has been applied to the unclear element to the best of the examiner ability.
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) 16 and 18-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Prasad US 7,900,822 in view of Lee et al US 2015/0294447.
Prassad US 7,900,82 Re claim 16 Prasad discloses An apparatus including a pocket (check sleeve )comprising :a component having a pocket structure (see abstract check sleeve) with an opening for receiving a sheet of material (see column 3 lines 50-60 note that the sleeve as an opening to insert the check), the pocket structure formed of an at least partially transparent (see column 8 lines 25-30 note that there is a check sleeve which may be transparent) pocket panel coupled to the component (see figure 2 note that the pocket panel may be for example the front of the sleeve), the pocket panel including: a plurality of fiducial marks (see column 5 lines 15-40 note that markings 608 and 610 may be used to help determin the orientation of and position of the sleeve ); a cutout extending down a longitudinal margin of the component and permitting access to at least a portion of a sheet of material received in the pocket structure (see column 4 lines 33-60 and column 8 lines 15-25 note that cutout may be placed on the sleeve to assist in extracting the data see for example figure 4 note that the cut out extends down the longitudinal margin); and an indication area extending down the longitudinal margin of the component and configured to be marked in to indicate at least one subregion of the plurality of subregions (see figure 6 note that indica [marks] 620 622 and 624 are position in a margin area that extend down the longitudinal portion of the sleeve column 5 lines 40-55 note that the ) to facilitate extraction of information contained in the at least one subregion (see column 5 lines 40-55 note that the indicia assist in the OCR extraction operation ).
Prasad does not expressly disclose fiducial marks disposed in each corner of the component. Lee discloses fiducial marks disposed in each corner of the component (see paragraphs 44 and 45) The motivation to combine is to “In general, 50% of images may not be suitable for use in optical character recognition because of: misalignment or skew of the image relative to the camera or imaging device; poor lighting and/or not centering the document properly. Consequently, the resulting image may not be suitable for subsequent optical character recognition. This may cause the user to skip what could have been a time-saving approach. Instead, the user may manually enter information, which can be frustrating, is prone to errors, and may degrade the user experience. [0045] To address these problems, the visual indicators may specify an image ‘frame’ using one or more corner markers”. One of ordinary skill in the art could have easily placed fiducial markers in the corners of the apparatus of Prasad as described in Lee to reach the aforementioned advantage. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Lee and Prasad to reach the aforementioned advantage.
Re claim 18 Prasad discloses wherein the component is one of a filer ( the examiner notes that the broadest reasonable interpretation of the term filer is interpreted as “An apparatus for filing or holding papers.” See column 2 lines 40-55 note that the sleeve is designed to hold checks in place ), a binder, a folder, and a notebook.
Re claim 19 Prasad further disclose the elements of claim 16 wherein the sheet of material includes a plurality of indicators each corresponding with at least one of the plurality of subregions that are configured to be marked by a user. The examiner notes that in claim 16 the sheet of material is not a part of the apparatus rather the apparatus has pocket structure with an opening for receiving a sheet of the material. As such this limitation does not really further limit the apparatus itself but the sheet the apparatus is capable of receiving. The examiner notes that while the system is designed to receive checks it is capable of receiving a sheet of paper with anything printed on it. What is on the sheet does not affect the structure of the claimed opening for receiving a sheet of material, nor would it affect a cutout which permits access to a portion the sheet. As such the apparatus with the pocket structure of Prasad is capable of receiving the claimed sheet including a plurality of indicators each corresponding with at least one of the plurality of subregions that are configured to be marked by a user. The claim further recites the element and “wherein the detected marking includes a detected indicator marked by a user”. The examiner notes that this element appears to modify to some marking detection function which lack antecedent basis in the claim and it is unclear how this element limits the structure of the claimed apparatus. The examiner does not believe this unclear element further limits the structure of the claim as it does not appear to modify any structural features of the presently claimed apparatus.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 17 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.
Cited Art
Bright US 4975735 A An apparatus including a pocket comprising (see abstract pocket material): a component ( document carrier see abstract) having a pocket structure (see abstract pocket) with an opening for receiving a sheet of material (see paragraph 3 lines 55-65 note that documents are inserted into the opening 17), the pocket structure formed of an at least partially transparent pocket panel coupled to the component (see figure 1 and abstract note that the transparent film form the pocket ), the pocket panel including:; and an indication area extending down the longitudinal margin of the component (see figure 2 element 13 )
Inaba US 20140132533 A1 discloses The information input device includes first detecting portion, second detecting portion, first positioning portion, second positioning portion, first information acquiring portion, and second information acquiring portion. The first information acquiring portion is configured to acquire information that is written on a paper sheet overlapping with a cover sheet positioned by the first positioning portion, based on the position of the writing tool detected by the first detecting portion. The second information acquiring portion is configured to acquire information that is written on a paper sheet overlapping with a cover sheet positioned by the second positioning portion, based on the position of the writing tool detected by the second detecting portion. (see abstract).
Walters US 20090190823 A1 discloses In general, this disclosure describes techniques of efficiently generating digital versions of financial documents from physical versions of the financial documents. As described herein, one or more financial documents may be inserted into one or more pockets of an envelope. The envelope is sufficiently transparent to allow both sides the financial documents to be scanned with a digital image capture device. Furthermore, the envelope is sized in such that the envelope, with the financial documents, may be individually fed into the digital image capture device by an automatic document feeder that is capable of feeding individual pages having a standard paper size into the digital image capture device. After inserting the financial documents into the pockets of the envelope, digital images of the financial documents may be captured. The digital images of the financial documents may then be processed and transmitted to a financial institution. (see abstract)
Drogan US 20070071971 A1 discloses Flat, or folded, colored and colorless, erasable highlighting sheet film, with options for pre-scored, pre-cut, perforated strip-lined, flat, folded, pocketed, adhesive and no tack versions, the method and apparatus of which are used for short and/or long term affixation of the highlighting sheet film to a substrate, and removal thereof at any time. During use, the sheet film protects the associated substrate and after removal preserves the privacy of personal notes, while optionally saving them for sharing with others in association with the same or duplicate substrate. In addition, the sheet film may be saved, indefinitely stored, cleaned, and/or reapplied without visible damage to any substrate. Optional apparatus used to provide a second layer/level/echelon of highlighting to the sheet film, or otherwise prepare it for use or reuse, include colored or colorless marking tools, cloth, adhesive means, templates, and/or cutting tools in varying combinations, but not limited to these combinations. (See abstract)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SEAN T MOTSINGER whose telephone number is (571)270-1237. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chineyere Wills-Burns can be reached at (571) 272-9752. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SEAN T MOTSINGER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2673