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 § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being unpatentable over Park et al. (11604177), (hereinafter referred to as “Park”).
Regarding claim 1, Park discloses a memory and processing to do excrement analysis includes an inputting imaging data captured by an image capture apparatus being installed in such a way as to include, in a capturing range, an excretion range of excrement in a toilet bowl of a toilet (Park: figures 1-3), performing classification processing of classifying a capturing target substance in a pixel unit by using semantic segmentation with respect to imaging data being input (Park: figure 14), and outputting a classification result by the classification processing (Park: figure 3).
Regarding claim 2, Park discloses classifies, for each pixel, the capturing target substance into any of the excrement, a foreign body not being allowed to be discard into the toilet bowl, and another substance (Park: figure 14, wherein the target substance is classified into excrement).
Regarding claim 3, Park discloses classifies the excrement into any of feces, urine, and urine dripping, or any of feces, urine, feces and urine, and urine dripping (Park: figure 14; wherein the excrement is classified as feces).
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) 4-5, 7-11, 22-28, and 35-36 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. (11604177), (hereinafter referred to as “Park”) in view of Guillemette (11540760).
Regarding claim 4, note the examiners rejection for claim 1, and in addition, claim 4 differs from claim 1 in that claim 4 further requires the specifics of the characteristcs. Guillemette teaches that prior art excrement systems may require unnecessary emergency room visits and/or incorrect medication given to a patient (Guillemette: column 2, lines 3-18). To help alleviate this problem Guillemette discloses the classification processing also performs together with at least one of classification of the feces into a plurality of predetermined feces characteristics, feces colors, and the urine into urine colors (Guillemette: figures 18-20; column 16, line 22-column 17, line 22). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to take the apparatus disclosed by Park and add the processing taught by Guillemette in order to obtain an apparatus that helps reduce the number of emergency room trips for a patient.
Regarding claim 5, Park discloses the another substance includes at least one of a buttocks washing machine, toilet paper, and a substance after flushing the excrement (Park: column 12, lines 4-17).
Regarding claim 7, Guillemette discloses outputting an excretion notification to an observer observing a user of the toilet when a classification result is classified into the excrement (Guillemette: figures 14 and 18-20), after the notification is output, classify each pixel being classified into the excrement into any of feces, urine, urine dripping, or any of feces, urine, feces and urine, and urine dripping, and also performs together with at least one of classification of the feces into a plurality of predetermined feces characteristics, colors, and classification of the urine to a plurality of urine colors (Guillemette: figures 14 and 18-20; column 16 line 22-column 17, line 22), and outputting the classification result (Guillemette: figures 14 and 18-20).
Regarding claim 8, Guillemette discloses outputting as information including a classification image drawn by performing color classification for each classification (Guillemette: figure 21).
Regarding claim 9, Guillemette discloses outputting includes notifying an observer observing a user of the toilet of a classification result (Guillemette: figures 14 and 18-21).
Regarding claim 10, please see the above rejections. While not disclosed, it would have been obvious to determine whether a user of the toilet completes pretreatment before colonoscopy (Official Notice). Doing so would have been obvious in order to let an observer know when a patient is ready for a procedure.
Regarding claims 11, 22-28 and 35-36, please see the rejections above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 6 is 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.
Conclusion
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/Dave Czekaj/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2487
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