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 Objections
Claims 1 and 5 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 should be written as a single sentence. See MPEP 608.01(m) for proper formatting guidelines.
In Claim 5, lines 3-4, the phrase “the speed calculator and speed calculator read the positions…” should instead read “the speed calculator and spin calculator read the positions…”
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.
Claims 1-7 are 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.
Regarding claim 1, the phrase "Ethernet, USB, Bluetooth, etc." renders the claim indefinite because the claim include elements not actually disclosed (those encompassed by "etc."), thereby rendering the scope of the claim unascertainable. See MPEP § 2173.05(d). For purposes of examination, Examiner is interpreting the limitation to mean “at least one of Ethernet, USB, or Bluetooth.”
Further regarding claim 1, The term “ultra high speed” in claim is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “ultra” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. It is unclear what specific metric(s) differentiates an “ultra high speed” motion detector from typical “high-speed” motion detectors, which are well-known within the art. For purposes of examination, Examiner is interpreting this to merely refer to these typical high-speed motion detectors.
Regarding claim 5, the limitation "these two sets of keyframes from two cascaded trackers" is recited in lines 2-3, and the limitation “the two keyframes” is recited in line 4. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Regarding claim 7, the phrase “such as Ethernet, USB, Bluetooth, etc.” renders the claim indefinite because the claim include elements not actually disclosed (those encompassed by "etc."), thereby rendering the scope of the claim unascertainable. Additionally, the phrase “such as” also renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitations following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d). For purposes of examination, Examiner is interpreting the limitation to mean “at least one of Ethernet, USB, or Bluetooth.”
Claims 2-7 are also rejected for depending upon rejected claim 1.
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 (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.
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.
Claims 1-3, 5, and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2024/0422440 (hereinafter “Narfason”), and further in view of US 2016/0350922 (hereinafter “Tofolo”).
Regarding Claim 1, Narfason discloses a golf hitting data analyzer (figs. 2, 12-13), characterized in that it includes a sensor group (par. 0101: “the system 100 may include additional sensors;” par. 0103: “image sensor”), a static golf ball detector (figs. 2-3; par. 0123: “if a golf ball is static, the method proceeds to 518. The golf ball can be determined to be static if, for example, two or more consecutive images are captured in which the same ball is detected at the same location”), an ultra high speed motion detector (par. 0113: “The purpose of event-based detection may be to… enables a high-speed capture of images (e.g., high speed capture of images of a time and location including a time and location at which a golf ball will be launched by contact with the head of a moving golf club). For example, when the head of a golf club in motion is detected close to (or on a path determined to intersect with) the location of a single golf ball (e.g., a golf ball separate from other golf balls), the system may determine that a ball is about to be struck”), a cascaded high-speed motion target tracker (par. 0208: “imager 1210 may be a high-speed camera being able to operate in a normal state with e.g., 4096×2160 resolution (4K or Ultra HD) and a frame rate at 40 fps (frames per second) and in a high-speed state with a frame rate between 2000-4000 fps;” par. 0209: “the processor 1230 instructs the controller 1220 to change state from normal state to a high-speed state”), a hitting parameter calculator (Fig. 7; pars. 0172-0173: “The methods described herein calculate the 3D Spin Axis (SA) of a moving ball by observing only a small part of a shot trajectory, e.g., at launch… knowledge of the 3D rotation vector is important in several applications. For example, if the 3D rotation vector is estimated using only the first few frames available in a sport ball shot, this information can be used together with the knowledge of launch angle, launch direction and ball speed, to provide the full trajectory of the ball”), and an output (par. 0174: “it is desirable to provide an output within less than 0.5 seconds by running in a normal hardware, such as a standard commercially available laptop;” par. 0184: “the 3D spin axis is output for display to a user”);
the sensor group includ[ing] a first sensor and a second sensor (par. 0101: “the system 100 may include additional sensors;” par. 0103: “image sensor”), and the cascaded high-speed motion target tracker includes a medium precision golf ball tracker and a high-precision golf ball tracker (par 0107: “where high precision is desired (e.g., for a ball detection algorithm) pixel locations corresponding to the ball can be precisely determined. In other examples, high precision may not be necessary or useful for the ball detection algorithm;” par. 0209: “the processor 1230 instructs the controller 1220 to change state from normal state to a high-speed state;” par. 0175: “The algorithm for the estimation of the 3D SA may be referred to as the Ball Tracker (BT)”);
the hitting parameter calculator includ[ing] a golf ball 3D posture calculator (fig. 7; par. 0116: “if the same golf ball is identified in multiple consecutive images but in different image coordinates (u, v) while the camera remains in the same position and aimed in the same direction, the golf ball is determined to be in motion;” par. 0179: “the images should be sufficient to correctly track the features in the ball, e.g., images where the ball has a radius equal to or greater than 25 pixels. The images can be calibrated. Given the knowledge of the ball radius in meters, the (u, v) sensor coordinates can be converted into (x, y, z) real coordinates”), a speed calculator (par. 0085: “Various parameters related to the game of golf that can be determined based on a sequence of images (or a single image) from, e.g., a single imager, include, for example: determination of an initial speed for a struck ball”), and a spin calculator (par. 0171: “calculation of spin parameters for a spinning spherical ball. In these embodiments, a full three-dimensional (3D) rotation vector of a moving spinning spherical sports ball is measured by resorting to images acquired by only a single camera”); and
the output includ[ing] a parabolic calculator (par. 0050: “the estimated travel path of the golf ball in flight after the striking event;” Examiner notes the estimated travel path of the golf ball will inherently be parabolic in shape) and a graphics display (par. 0104: “results of the analyses, e.g., parameter determinations, can be presented to a user by a display 125”).
Narfason does not explicitly disclose the output includes Ethernet, USB, or Bluetooth. However, Tofolo discloses the output includes Ethernet, USB, or Bluetooth (par. 0035: “the external devices can be server computers, wearable devices (such as a Bluetooth headset or a watch), or additional output devices”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the specific output of Tofolo with the system of Narfason in order to offer the user a wider variety of output devices (Tofolo, pars. 0034-0036).
Regarding Claim 2, Narfason further discloses the second sensor reads a standard resolution video stream (par. 0086: “some imagers have adjustable image capture parameters, e.g., variable frame rate or resolution (up to a maximum)”), which is fed into a static golf ball detector for target detection (par. 0106: “the imager 105 provides to the computer 110 a continuous stream of images… at a low resolution. In this low power state, the computer 110 continuously or semi-continuously executes one or more object detection algorithms for each frame received from the imager 105… object detection algorithms can include, e.g., a ball detector”).
Regarding Claim 3, Narfason further discloses the first sensor outputs a high-speed high-definition infrared camera (par. 0176: “The BT works with… infrared images acquired within a moving spinning sport ball… it is very important to have high resolution images acquired at a reasonably high video rate, and with a fairly low exposure time”) and a variable resolution video stream (par. 0168: “operating parameters such as a frame rate, a resolution, etc. that are increased relative to the low power state;” par. 0179: “the resolution of the images should be sufficient to correctly track the features in the ball, e.g., images where the ball has a radius equal to or greater than 25 pixels”).
Regarding Claim 5, Narfason further discloses the golf ball three-dimensional posture calculator estimates the three-dimensional posture of two sets of keyframes from two cascaded trackers, and the speed calculator and spin calculator read the positions of a set of spherical feature points in the two keyframes (par. 0026: “processor is configured to perform following operations: detect the ball in a first and second image from the sequence of images; implement a dense optical flow (DOF) model to compute a pixel displacement across the first and second images; and compute three-dimensional spin parameters for the ball based on the pixel displacement;” par. 0173: “if the 3D rotation vector is estimated using only the first few frames available in a sport ball shot, this information can be used together with the knowledge of… ball speed;” par. 0184: “the post-processed DOF(s) are analyzed to compute the 3D rotation vector, including the spin rate (SR) and spin axis (SA), of the ball. The 3D rotation vector is computed in view of the geometry 735 of the scene, including knowledge of the camera and ball positions”).
Regarding Claim 7, Narfason modified by Tofolo further discloses real-time image data collected by two cameras (Narfason, par. 0206: “the BT is able to run quasi real-time;” par. 0095: “additional imagers may be employed as desired;” par. 0053: “the imager has a camera sensor chip”), a high-speed high-definition infrared camera (Narfason, par. 0176: “The BT works with… infrared images acquired within a moving spinning sport ball… it is very important to have high resolution images acquired at a reasonably high video rate, and with a fairly low exposure time”) and a high-speed standard definition infrared camera (Narfason, par. 0103: “the imager 105 may operate in… the infrared spectrum;” par. 0106: “the imager 105 provides to the computer 110 a continuous stream of images… at a low resolution”), are parallel sent to an FPGA field programmable logic gate array (Tofolo, par. 0093: “It should also be well understood that any functionality described herein can be performed, at least in part, by one or more hardware logic components, instead of software. For example, and without limitation, illustrative types of hardware logic components that can be used include Field-programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)”) and output the results, hitting data packets, through peripherals such as Ethernet, USB, or Bluetooth (par. 0035: “the external devices can be server computers, wearable devices (such as a Bluetooth headset or a watch), or additional output devices;” par. 0046: “the trajectory parameters can be transmitted from the launch monitor to an external device, such as via the wireless modem 260. In particular, the trajectory parameters can be transmitted via Bluetooth”). The combination of the golf hitting analysis system of Narfason with the particular output of Tofolo described above for Claim 1 would have included this use of an FPGA.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Narfason in view of Tofolo as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 2020/0387873 (hereinafter “Hall”).
Regarding Claim 4, Narfason further discloses calculates the pixel level accuracy of the golf ball position (par. 0026: “detect the ball in a first and second image from the sequence of images; implement a dense optical flow (DOF) model to compute a pixel displacement across the first and second images; and compute three-dimensional spin parameters for the ball based on the pixel displacement;” par. 0107: “where high precision is desired (e.g., for a ball detection algorithm) pixel locations corresponding to the ball can be precisely determined”).
Narfason does not explicitly disclose filtering the noise or background. However, Hall discloses the medium precision golf ball tracker filters the background and noise (Par. 0011: “A central computer is connected with the camera focal plane of each camera to identify a start point for the golf ball, to track its trajectory in the x-y-z space, and to filter out background clutter;” par. 0063: “exclude irrelevant images such as… noisy images etc.”) and obtains a high-resolution filtered video stream (par. 0051: “An Internet Protocol (IP) Camera (“IPcam”) is a type of digital video camera… The invention uses an IP Camera with a minimum resolution of 4K (3840×2160);” par. 0064: “After the image filtering, a quality inspection was carried out to ensure that the guidelines are being adhered to”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the golf hitting analysis system of Narfason with the filtering of Hall in order to remove irrelevant data (Hall, pars. 0053, 0063).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Narfason in view of Tofolo as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 2020/0004322 (hereinafter “Kudirka”).
Regarding Claim 6, Narfason does not disclose air pressure parameters. However, Kudirka discloses the parabolic calculator (par. 0132: “A predicted trajectory (e.g., a trajectory of a ball outside of a launch window monitored by the ball-tracking sub-system 104) may be calculated by any technique known in the art”), combined with air pressure parameters, continues to estimate the flight trajectory line of the ball (par. 0091: “It is recognized herein that weather conditions such as… air pressure… may impact the trajectory of a ball in flight. Accordingly, the ball-tracking sensors 310 may include weather-monitoring sensors such as… air pressure sensors;” par. 0035: “view a virtual ball moving along a predicted trajectory”), and is handed over to a graphical display to complete the drawing of a three-dimensional trajectory line animation and the stacking of hitting parameter text (par. 0157: “For instance, statistical values (e.g., average values, maximum values, minimum values, or the like) may be present in alphanumeric form. In another instance, multiple trajectories may be presented in a graphical form;” par. 0169: “a step 1506 of displaying a virtual trajectory of the golf ball in the mixed-reality scene (e.g., based on the ball-tracking data)… a step 1508 of displaying selected tracking data (e.g., ball-tracking data, user-tracking data, club-tracking data, or the like)”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the golf hitting analysis system of Narfason with the particular trajectory estimation of Kudirka in order to increase the accuracy of the trajectory estimation since weather conditions are known to affect ball trajectory (Kudirka, par. 0091).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 2020/0398138 (Hendrix) teaches a golf hitting analysis system which uses multiple low-speed cameras.
US 2004/0030527 (Rankin) teaches a golf hitting analysis method and apparatus in which the background of images are filtered out and the pixel level accuracy of the golf ball position is calculated.
US 2022/0233939 (Oh) teaches a golf hitting analysis device which uses infrared images, speed information, and spin information.
US 2021/0069548 (Beach) teaches a golf hitting analysis system which utilizes an FPGA and outputs results via Bluetooth.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JULIE DOSHER whose telephone number is (571) 272-4842. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. ET.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Dmitry Suhol can be reached at (571) 272-4430. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/J.G.D./Examiner, Art Unit 3715
/DMITRY SUHOL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3715