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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1 – 20 remain pending.
Claims 1, 15 and 20 are Amended
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed July 22, 2026 with respect to claims 1 – 20 have been considered but are moot because the new grounds of do not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claims 1 – 5, 9, 14 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C 103 as being unpatentable over Xiao US Patent Application Publication No. US-20150242009-A1 (hereinafter Xiao) in view of Zhai US Patent Application Publication No. US-20170003878-A1 (hereinafter Zhai).
Regarding claim 1, Xiao discloses an input device for classification of an input object, comprising: a touch sensor comprising a plurality of sensor electrodes configured to obtain touch data (Xiao in [0028] discloses, “the touch-sensitive surface 110 is based on capacitive sensing (e.g., projected capacitive, mutual capacitance), the touch sensor 112A may often use an arrangement of electrodes to sense capacitance at multiple locations on the touch-sensitive surface 110”); and a processing system configured to: receive touch data from resulting signals from the plurality of sensor electrodes (Xiao in [0032] discloses, “the touch sensor circuitry 112A produces the capacitive image data for subsequent processing and the circuitry 112B produces data from other modalities for subsequent processing”. Xiao in [0007] discloses about plurality of sensor electrodes, “The electronic device based on capacitive sensing often uses an arrangement of electrodes to sense capacitance at multiple locations on the touch-sensitive surface”); generate a touch image based on the touch data (Xiao in [0028] discloses, “the touch sensor 112A creates a two-dimensional (2D) capacitance profile, which is referred to as a "capacitive image”); generate one or more contact images based on the touch image (Xiao in [0039] discloses, “The capacitive image data processing module 252 can also process the capacitive image data to extract locations corresponding to the physical touches on the touch-sensitive surface 110”), each contact image comprising one or more first pixels from the touch image and one or more second pixels with predefined values (Xiao in [0040] discloses, “the capacitive image data processing module 252 can filter the capacitive image data so that all values not corresponding to the physical touch are set to zero. Values corresponding to the physical touch itself are referred to hereinafter, as "nonzero values."); classify, using a neural network, a respective contact in each of the one or more contact images and generate corresponding classification results (Xiao in [0049] discloses, “The classification module 258 classifies the touch event using extracted features from the capacitive image data as well as possibly other non-capacitive sensor features, including vibro-acoustic features and touch data features”); and identify, based on the classification results, one or more classified contacts in the touch image (Xiao in [0008] discloses, “the classification engine determines whether a fingertip, knuckle, fingernail, stylus, eraser or other instrument has been used to touch the surface of the electronic device”),
Xiao doesn’t disclose about the following limitation as further recited in the claim.
Zhai discloses generating the one or more contact images based on the touch image comprises positioning, for each contact image, the one or more first pixels at a center of the corresponding contact image (Zhai in [0034] discloses, “A center point can be defined as the center of mass of an image or the center of an image bounding box. In some examples, assigning the correct finger model to the new finger contact image 202a-202e, 204a-204e is most likely to occur when the centers are aligned between T and F.sub.i,j”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to integrate the technique of Zhai into the system of Xiao because generating a consistent fixed position representation for every contact would make the classification more accurate and computationally efficient.
Summary of Citations (Zhai)
Paragraph [0034]; “A center point can be defined as the center of mass of an image or the center of an image bounding box. In some examples, assigning the correct finger model to the new finger contact image 202a-202e, 204a-204e is most likely to occur when the centers are aligned between T and F.sub.i,j”.
Summary of Citations (Xiao)
Paragraph [0007]; “The electronic device based on capacitive sensing often uses an arrangement of electrodes to sense capacitance at multiple locations on the touch-sensitive surface”.
Paragraph [0008]; “the classification engine determines whether a fingertip, knuckle, fingernail, stylus, eraser or other instrument has been used to touch the surface of the electronic device”.
Paragraph [0028]; “the touch-sensitive surface 110 is based on capacitive sensing (e.g., projected capacitive, mutual capacitance), the touch sensor 112A may often use an arrangement of electrodes to sense capacitance at multiple locations on the touch-sensitive surface 110 .... the touch sensor 112A creates a two-dimensional (2D) capacitance profile, which is referred to as a "capacitive image”.
Paragraph [0032]; “the touch sensor circuitry 112A produces the capacitive image data for subsequent processing and the circuitry 112B produces data from other modalities for subsequent processing”.
Paragraph [0039]; “The capacitive image data processing module 252 can also process the capacitive image data to extract locations corresponding to the physical touches on the touch-sensitive surface 110”.
Paragraph [0040]; “the capacitive image data processing module 252 can filter the capacitive image data so that all values not corresponding to the physical touch are set to zero. Values corresponding to the physical touch itself are referred to hereinafter, as "nonzero values."
Paragraph [0049]; “The classification module 258 classifies the touch event using extracted features from the capacitive image data as well as possibly other non-capacitive sensor features, including vibro-acoustic features and touch data features”.
Regarding claims 2 – 5, 9 and 14 the combination of Xiao and Zhai as a whole teaches claim 1, and Xiao teaches claims 2 – 5, 9 and 14 for the same grounds of rejection from the Non-Final Office Action of 04/29/2026.
Regarding claim 15, method claim 15 corresponds to apparatus claim 1. Therefore, the
rejection analysis of claim 1 is applicable to claim 15.
Regarding claim 16, method claim 16 corresponds to apparatus claim 2. Therefore, the
rejection analysis of claim 2 is applicable to claim 16.
Regarding claim 17, method claim 17 corresponds to apparatus claim 3. Therefore, the
rejection analysis of claim 3 is applicable to claim 17.
Regarding claim 18, method claim 18 corresponds to apparatus claim 4. Therefore, the
rejection analysis of claim 4 is applicable to claim 18.
Regarding claim 19, method claim 19 corresponds to apparatus claim 5. Therefore, the
rejection analysis of claim 5 is applicable to claim 19.
Regarding claim 20, is a non-transitory computer readable storage medium claim
corresponds to apparatus claim 1. Therefore, the rejection analysis of claim 1 is applied in claim 20.
Claims 6, 10, 11 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C 103 as being unpatentable over Xiao in view of Zhai and further in view of James “Classification Network-Guided Weighted K-Means Clustering for Multitouch Detection” (hereinafter James).
Regarding claims 6, 10, 11 and 13, the combination of Xiao and Zhai as a whole teaches claim 1 but fails to teach the further limitations as recited in claims 6, 10, 11 and 13. James teaches claims 6, 10, 11 and 13 for the same grounds of rejection and motivation established in the Non-Final Office Action of 04/29/2026.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C 103 as being unpatentable over Xiao in view of Zhai and further in view of Shen US Patent Publication No. US-9733293-B1 (hereinafter Shen).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Xiao and Zhai as a whole teaches claim 1 but fails to teach the further limitations as recited in claim 7. Shen teaches claims 7 for the same grounds of rejection and motivation established in the Non-Final Office Action of 04/29/2026.
Claims 8 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C 103 as being unpatentable over Xiao in view of Zhai and further in view of Takkar US Patent Publication No. US-12360636-B1 (hereinafter Takkar).
Regarding claim 8 and 12, the combination of Xiao and Zhai as a whole teaches claim 1 but fails to teach the further limitations as recited in claims 8 and 12. Takkar teaches claims 8 and 12 for the same grounds of rejection and motivation established in the Non-Final Office Action of 04/29/2026.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZAID MUHAMMAD SALEH whose telephone number is (703)756-1684. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8 am - 5 pm ET.
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/ZAID MUHAMMAD SALEH/
Examiner, Art Unit 2668
08/10/2026
/VU LE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2668
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