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 .
Priority
Acknowledgement is made of Applicant’s claim of the instant application being a Continuation-in-Part Application of U.S. Patent Application No. 18/241,985, filed on September 4, 2023, now U.S. Patent No. 12,232,572, which is a Continuation Application U.S. Application No. 16/979,111, filed on September 8, 2020, now U.S. Patent No. 11,779,084, which is a National Stage Entry of International Patent Application No. PCT/KR2019/002799, filed on Mar 11, 2019, which claims priority from and the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2018-0028311, filed on March 9, 2018. It is also acknowledged that the instant application is a Bypass Continuation of International Patent Application No. PCT/KR2022/014895, filed on October 4, 2022, which claims priority from and the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2021-0150726, filed on November 4, 2021.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (“IDS”) filed on 02/26/2024 were reviewed and the listed references were noted.
Drawings
The 31 page drawings have been considered and placed on record in the file.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-15 are pending.
Examiner’s Note
Claims 6-10 recite “A computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a computer program …”. Although, Applicant’s specification does not clarify, and only provides example of recording media, a person of ordinary skill in the art recognizes that “a computer-readable recording medium” does not include signals or propagating waves (which are among the non-statutory subject matters); and therefore, the claims, as recited, are regarded as being patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. 101.
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.
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 CFR 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, 6, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sherrah et al. (US 2020/0000180 ).
Consider Claim 1, Sherrah discloses “A foot information processing method executed by a processor of a foot information processing apparatus, the foot information processing method” (Abstract and Paragraph [0079]) “comprising: generating an initial three-dimensional (3D) model of a foot based on a plurality of foot images, which are obtained by photographing the foot from various angles” (for examples Figs. 23, 26, 30 show that a user is taking photograph of her feet from different angles. Fig. 40:4002 and Paragraph [0240] disclose generation of 3D space from the 2D images of the recipient’s feet. In addition, Fig. 47 shows the 3D point cloud of the recipient’s foot); “generating an intermediate 3D model by removing ground and noise from the initial 3D model” (Fig. 49 and Paragraphs [0294]-[0295] disclose locating the ground plane, subtracting floor points, removing noise from the 3D point cloud); “generating a final 3D model with a normal foot shape by restoring a portion of the foot that has been removed along with the ground when generating the intermediate 3D model” (Paragraph [0300] discloses “at least two point clusters may be identified. Each cluster may represent an individual foot, such as the left foot cluster and right foot cluster described above. Additional steps may be performed by the processors to enhance the quality of the clusters. For example, various steps may be performed to increase the density of the clusters (e.g., at step 4104 of FIG. 41); remove noise from each cluster (e.g., steps 4903 and 4905 above); and/or confirm that each point with each cluster may contribute to defining the external surfaces of the feet in three-dimensional space”); “and calculating foot-related information from the final 3D model” (Fig. 59 and Paragraphs [0353]-[0354] disclose the detailed calculation of the 3D point cloud information of the foot as calculated by the processor) “and recommending shoes” (Paragraph [0390] discloses “the recommendation process 310 may output recommendations as to which footwear to allocate to a particular recipient”).
Accordingly, before the effective date of the instant application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine different implementations taught by Sherrah to arrive at the 3D refinement of the foot information data from 2D photographs. One of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the various implementations of Sherrah in order to create a virtual foot measurement system that enables remote selection/recommendation of shoe sizes for an individual. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the implementations taught in Sherrah to obtain the invention in Claim 1.
Claim 6 recites a computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a computer program with instructions corresponding to the steps of the method recited in Claim 1. Therefore, the recited instructions of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the implementations taught by Sherrah, presented in rejection of Claim 1, apply to this claim. In addition, Sherrah discloses a machine readable storage medium in its application (Paragraph [0096]).
Claim 11 recites an apparatus with elements corresponding to the steps of the method recited in Claim 1. Therefore, the recited elements of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the implementations taught by Sherrah, presented in rejection of Claim 1, apply to this claim. In addition, Sherrah discloses a processor and a memory in its application (Paragraph [0096]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-5, 7-10, and 12-15 are 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: although Sherrah discloses capturing images of the foot while moving the camera (sensor) around the foot and create a 3D point cloud of the foot (as seen in analysis of Claim 1), it does not provide a motivation to teach the ordered combination of (i) moving an RGB camera 360 degrees around the foot; (ii) “when capturing the plurality of foot images, acquiring pieces of 3D point cloud data (a 3D point cloud set) based on information about a distance to the foot, which is measured by a light-detection-and-ranging (LiDAR) sensor”; and (iii) “generating an initial 3D model of the foot by combining the RGB information with the pieces of 3D point cloud data based on the information about the distance to the foot.” Dependent Claims 7 and 12 include the above-described allowable subject matter. Dependent Claims 3-4, 8-9, and 13-14 are depending from Claims 2, 6, and 12, respectively, and therefore, inherently include the above-described allowable subject matter. Finally, the cited prior art does not provide a motivation to teach the ordered combination of the limitations recited in Claims 5, 10, and 15..
Conclusion and Contact
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure: Mach Shepherd et al. (US 2017/0249783).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Siamak HARANDI whose telephone number is (571)270-1832. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday 9:30 - 6:00 ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amandeep Saini can be reached on (571)272-3382. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Siamak Harandi/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2662
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