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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 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 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 3-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sant et al. (USPN 10,932,890), hereinafter, “Sant”, in view of Saphier et al. (USPAP 2023/0042,643), hereinafter, “Saphier”.
Regarding claim 3 Sant teaches, an intraoral scanner to generate a plurality of consecutive intraoral scans of an intraoral three-dimensional (3D) surface during intraoral scanning of the intraoral 3D surface, each intraoral scan of the plurality of consecutive intraoral scans comprising an image of a distribution of discrete unconnected spots of light projected on the intraoral 3D surface (Please note, column 2, lines 54-62. As indicated an intraoral scanner may be used which allows for the capture of direct optical impressions. In this specification, an intraoral scan may include information indicative of geometrical information associated with the patient's mouth. An example intraoral scan may include a point cloud. For this example intraoral scan, the point cloud may include a multitude of points representing three-dimensional locations corresponding to an inside of the patient's mouth.); and at least one computer processor (Please note, column 18, lines 9-10. As indicated all of the processes described herein may be embodied in, and fully automated via, software code modules executed by a computing system that includes one or more general purpose computers or processors.) configured to: receive, during the intraoral scanning of the intraoral 3D surface by the intraoral scanner, the plurality of consecutive intraoral scans of the intraoral 3D surface generated by the intraoral scanner. (Please note, column 2, lines 63-67. As indicated intraoral scan may include a mesh. For this example intraoral scan, the mesh may be a three-dimensional surface model of the patient's mouth. As an example, the three-dimensional surface model may include a multitude of polygonal shapes.).
Sant does not expressly teach, register the plurality of consecutive intraoral scans to each other during the intraoral scanning to update a segment of a 3D model of the intraoral 3D surface by registering each incoming scan of a subset of the plurality of consecutive intraoral scans to a registration seed, wherein the registration seed is a subset of the plurality of consecutive intraoral scans that immediately precede the incoming scan and that have previously been registered together; and output a view of the segment of the 3D model of the intraoral 3D surface to a display.
Saphier teaches, register the plurality of consecutive intraoral scans to each other during the intraoral scanning to update a segment of a 3D model of the intraoral 3D surface by registering each incoming scan of a subset of the plurality of consecutive intraoral scans to a registration seed, wherein the registration seed is a subset of the plurality of consecutive intraoral scans that immediately precede the incoming scan and that have previously been registered together (Please note, paragraph 0039. As indicated receiving a plurality of intraoral scans of a dental site during an intraoral scanning session; registering the plurality of intraoral scans together; generating a three-dimensional (3D) surface of the dental site based on the plurality of intraoral scans, the 3D surface comprising a plurality of regions, wherein each region of the plurality of regions is associated with a distinct subset of the plurality of intraoral scans; determining a plurality of values for the 3D surface, wherein each value is associated with a region of the plurality of regions and is determined based on application of one or more criteria to the subset of the plurality of intraoral scans associated with the region.); and output a view of the segment of the 3D model of the intraoral 3D surface to a display. (Please note, paragraph 0039. As indicated outputting a recommendation to rescan a region of the dental site associated with the region of the 3D surface.).
Sant & Saphier are combinable because they are from the same field of endeavor.
At the time before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize this registering operation of Saphier in Sant’s invention.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been as indicated on paragraph 0081, “This can facilitate quick and accurate scan sessions by reducing or eliminating discarded intraoral scans.”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Saphier with Sant to obtain the invention as specified in claim 3.
Regarding claim 4, Saphier recites, wherein the segment of the 3D model is updated at a rate of 3-100 times per second. (Please note, paragraph 0102. As indicated as intraoral scans are registered together, their combined data may be used to generate and/or update a 3D surface.).
Regarding claim 5, Saphier recites, wherein the registration seed comprises a subset of at least 2-8 intraoral scans generated by the intraoral scanner during the intraoral scanning. (Please note, paragraph 0240. As indicated the 3D surface may have a plurality of regions, where each region may be associated with a distinct subset of the intraoral scans.).
Regarding claim 6, Saphier recites, select a quantity of intraoral scans to be included in the registration seed such that the registration seed comprises images of a combined total of 500- 5000 discrete unconnected spots of light projected on the intraoral 3D surface. (Please note, paragraph 0255. As indicated a registration technique uses a trained machine learning model to determine relative position and orientation of the first and second 3D surfaces. The first plurality of intraoral scans, the second plurality of intraoral scans, the first 3D surface, the second 3D surface, projections of the first 3D surface onto one or more planes and/or projections of the second 3D surface onto one or more planes may be input into the trained machine learning model, which may output the relative position and orientation of the first and second 3D surfaces (e.g., as canonical position information).).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-17 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: The closest applied Prior Art of record fails to disclose or reasonably suggest wherein compute a source 3D point cloud from the distribution of discrete unconnected spots of light captured in each incoming scan and compute a target 3D point cloud from the registration seed, wherein registering each incoming scan of the subset of the plurality of consecutive intraoral scans to the registration seed comprises using an Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm to register the source 3D point cloud to the target 3D point cloud, receive, during the intraoral scanning, a plurality of 2D images of the intraoral 3D surface captured under broadband illumination, pair one or more of the plurality of 2D images with the incoming scan, and based on the pairing, classify a subset of the points in the source 3D point cloud as corresponding to a spot of light projected on rigid tissue, anduse as an input to the ICP algorithm only the points in the source 3D point cloud that are classified as corresponding to a spot of light projected on rigid tissue.
Examiner’s Note
The examiner cites particular figures, paragraphs, columns and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claims, other passages and figures may apply as well.
It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
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/AMIR ALAVI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2668 Tuesday, March 31, 2026