DETAILED ACTION
This is in reference to communication received 04 March 2026. Claims 1 – 20 are pending for examination. 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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Independent claim 8, representative of claims 1 and 15, in part is directed toward a statutory category of invention, the claim appears to be directed toward a judicial exception namely an abstract idea. Claim 8 recites invention directed to acquiring a video obtained at an area that includes a product shelf where a products are arranged; Video is analyzed to determine how a person (a customer) is behaving while purchasing a product by
generating time-series skeleton data of a person from the acquired video (e.g., did the person touch and item, did the person put the item in their basket, duration the item was with the person), and based on the behavior of the person, purchasing psychology of the person is acquired, a probability table is generated based upon implementation of sales promotion and calculated degree of interest of a person, and generated table is referenced to update implementation schedule of a sales promotion by re-calculating an implementation frequency for each of the sales promotion measures based on the probabilistic relationship in said conditional probability distribution table, and updating the implementation schedule and reallocating time slots for the sales promotion measures according to the re-calculated implementation frequency, which, pursuant to MPEP 2106.04, is aptly categorized as a method of organizing human activity (i.e. advertising). There is not device performing the recited limitations. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Represented claims 1 and 15, which do recite statutory categories (machine, product of manufacture, for example), the same analysis as above applies to these claims since the method steps are the same. However, the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. These claims add the generic computer components (additional elements) of a system comprising one or more hardware processors and a memory (claim 15), and a non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising instructions that when executed by a processor of a machine cause the machine to perform the method addressed above (claim 1).
The processor, memory, and non-transitory machine-readable medium are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of the processor, memory, and non-transitory machine-readable medium amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claims are not patent eligible.
When taken as an ordered combination, nothing is added that is not already present when the elements are taken individually. When viewed as a whole, the marketing activities amount to instructions applied using generic computer components.
As for dependent claims 2 – 7, 9 – 14 and 16 – 20 dependent on the aforementioned independent claims, and include all the limitations contained therein. These claims do not recite any additional technical elements, and simply disclose additional limitations that further limit the abstract idea with what information will be considered to generate purchase psychology, what will the purchase psychology information indicate, information will be represented as a conditional probability table, making correction to the purchase psychology information based on the response to questionnaire by the person comparing effectiveness of the sales promotion for each of the products. Thus, the dependent claims merely provide additional non-structural (and predominantly non-functional) details that fail to meaningfully limit the claims or the abstract idea(s).
Therefore, claims 1 – 20 are not drawn to eligible subject matter, as they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
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.
Claims 1 – 4, 6 – 11, 13 – 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Scudillo et al. Patent Application 2016/0253735 in view of Hualin He et al. US Publication 2020/0193148 hereinafter referred to as Hualin-He, Schoen et al. US Publication 2007/0260515 and Kristin Kuter published article “Conditional Probability Distribution” hereinafter referred to as Kuter.
Regarding claim 8 and represented claims 1 and 15, Scudillo teaches an information processing apparatus performing and evaluation method wherein, a person located in the area is detected and the state of the person is determined. An action the person is performing is also determined. A context of the person is determined based on the state of the person and the action the person is performing [Scudillo, 0003]. Scudillo teaches information processing apparatus and method comprising:
a memory [Scudillo, 0155]; and
a processor coupled to the memory [Scudillo, 0155] and configured to:
acquire a video obtained by imaging an area that includes a product shelf where a product is arranged (Scudillo, Infrared (IR) camera 306, in one embodiment, is a camera for capturing images of people near shelf screen 202A and is in communication with controller 302. Infrared camera 306, in one embodiment, is capable of capturing images of a person near shelf screen 202A with sufficient resolution to determine facial expressions, body movement, limb movement, etc. Images from infrared camera 306 can be used to determine what a person located near shelf screen 202A is doing) [Scudillo, 0030];
Scudillo does not teach generating skeleton data. However, Hualin-He teaches system and method for recognizing user actions with respect to objects. Hualin-He teaches a human posture detection algorithm, may be used to determine coordinates of wrist joints of t user in all image frames in the video of hands, and an enclosing rectangle of the user may be determined, as shown in blocks 602, 603, 605. A target tracking algorithm (such as a KCF tracking algorithm) may be used to ensure that the wrists in a plurality of image frames are associated with the same user [Hualin-He, 0075, Fig. 6, 3A, 3B and associated disclosure].
Therefore, at the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Scudillo by adopting teachings of Hualin-He and identify skeleton points in human body for recognizing a human posture, determine coordinates of their hand movements.
Scudillo in view of Hualin-He teaches system and method further comprising:
generating time-series skeleton data of a person from the acquired video (Hualin-He, a human posture detection algorithm, may be used to determine coordinates of wrist joints of the user in all image frames in the video of hands, and an enclosing rectangle of the user may be determined, as shown in blocks 602, 603, 605. A target tracking algorithm (such as a KCF tracking algorithm) may be used to ensure that the wrists in a plurality of image frames are associated with the same user) [Hualin-He, 0075, Fig. 6, 3A, 3B and associated disclosure];
specifying a sequence of behavior types of the person of purchasing the product based on a transition of the time-series skeleton data (Scudillo, For example, images captured via infrared camera 206 can be used to determine if the person is picking up and examining an item, a change in the person's facial expression while they are examining the item, etc.) [Scudillo, 0030; also see He, 0073, 0074];
calculating a degree of interest as purchase psychology information based on a duration or a specific pattern of the sequence of the behavior of types (Hualin-He, After the target item in a non-stationary state is recognized, a second time when the target item is in the non-stationary state and a second location where the target item is in the non-stationary state may be determined …. Subsequently, in step S230, when the first time matches the second time and the first location matches the second location, it is determined that the user performs the action with respect to the target item) [Hualin-He, 0073, 0074]
Scudillo in view of Hualin-He does not teach evaluation of sales promotion. However, Schoen teaches system and method for pacing the delivery of online advertisements. In Adjusting the pace advertisements are served includes decreasing the pace the advertisements are served, or alternatively, adjusting the rate the advertisement is served includes increasing the rate at which the advertisement is served [Schoen, 0006, 0007]. Therefore, at the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Scudillo in view of Hualin-He by adopting teachings of Schoen to increase ROI on advertising budget by controlling when advertising should be target to potential customers.
Scudillo in view of Hualin-He and Schoen teaches system and method further comprising:
acquire period information regarding a period when sales promotion measures for the product are implemented (Schoen, the advertisement pacing module 31 may receive click rate or other billable event information from the click tracking module 36. Accordingly, the advertisement pacing module periodically or continuously analyzes the rate at advertisement(s)are selected, or clicked, by end-users or other billable events.) [Schoen, 0056];
Scudillo in view of Hualin-He and Schoen does not teach generating of a conditional probability distribution table. However, Kuter teaches We can think of a conditional probability distribution as a probability distribution for a sub-population. In other words, a conditional probability distribution describes the probability that a randomly selected person from a sub-population has a given characteristic of interest. In this context, the joint probability distribution is the probability that a randomly selected person from the entire population has both characteristics of interest [Bobbitt, page 3], and a table can be drawn to document the relationship between plurality of variables [Kuter, page 3].
Therefore, at the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Scudillo in view of Hualin-He and Schoen by adopting teachings of Kuter to identify of a pair of activity occurring with higher confidence.
Scudillo in view of Hualin-He, Schoen and Kuter teaches system and method further comprising:
generating a conditional probability distribution table indicating a probabilistic relationship between an implementation of the sales promotion measures and the calculated degree of interest of the person (Kuter, Suppose we are interested in the relationship between an individual's hair (e.g., sales promotion) and eye color (e.g., eye color). Based on a random sample of Saint Mary's students, we have the following joint pmf, with marginal pmf's given in the margins) [Kuter, page 3]; and
autonomously re-calculating an implementation frequency for each of the sales promotion measures based on the probabilistic relationship in said conditional probability distribution table, and dynamically updating the implementation schedule stored in a memory of the computer by reallocating time slots for the sales promotion measures according to the re-calculated implementation frequency, thereby forming an optimization cycle for the sales promotion measures (Schoen,
Regarding claim 9 and represented claims 2 and 16, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Scudillo in view of Hualin-He, Schoen and Kuter teaches information processing apparatus and method further configured to generate the purchase psychology information, based on the specified behavior (Schoen, The customer impact is measured by correlating a display of a given image with the sales volume of products among customers who can be assumed to have viewed the image, in comparison with sales volume at other times. Analysis at the point of sale in this manner permits precise, immediate measurement of the impact of the promotional display) [Schoen, 0020].
Regarding claim 10 and represented claims 3 and 17, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Scudillo in view of Hualin-He, Schoen and Kuter teaches information processing apparatus and method, wherein the purchase psychology information is information that indicates whether or not the person is interested in the product, and the generating processing specifies a behavior of the person of staying in front of the product shelf, based on the specified behavior and generates the purchase psychology information, based on a time when the person stays in front of the product shelf (Scudillo, if a shopper is detected moving through an aisle, advertisements can be displayed to draw the shopper's gaze to a specific item or product. After the shopper's gaze has been drawn to the specific item or product, additional information about the product can be displayed to the shopper to entice the shopper to purchase the item. If a shopper picks up and examines the specific item or product, additional information about the item or product can be displayed to the shopper) [Scudillo, 0071].
Regarding claim 11 and represented claims 4 and 18, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Scudillo in view of Hualin-He, Schoen and Kuter teaches information processing apparatus and method, wherein the purchase psychology information is information that indicates whether or not there is a reliability of the person with respect to the product, and the generating processing specifies a behavior of the person of stretching a hand to the product on the product shelf, based on the specified behavior and generates the purchase psychology information, based on a cumulative number of times when the person stretches the hand (Scudillo, In some embodiments, bar code information obtained via barcode scanner 314 can be used in conjunction with other components of shelf screen ( e.g., shelf screen202A) in order to determine an item a person is interested in (e.g., an item the person is looking at or handling)) [Scudillo, 0042].
Regarding claim 12 and represented claims 5 and 19, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Scudillo in view of Hualin-He, Schoen and Kuter teaches information processing apparatus and method, wherein the evaluating processing generates a conditional probability distribution table that indicates a probability of the presence or absence of the interest, by using whether or not the sales promotion measures are implemented as a condition, based on the purchase psychology information acquired in the period when the sales promotion measures are implemented and the purchase psychology information acquired in a period when the sales promotion measures are not implemented (Kuter, Suppose we are interested in the relationship between an individual's hair and eye color. Based on a random sample of Saint Mary's students, we have the following joint pmf, with marginal pmf's given in the margins:)
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[Kuter, page 3].
Regarding claim 13 and represented claims 6 and 20, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Scudillo in view of Hualin-He, Schoen and Kuter teaches information processing apparatus and method for correcting the purchase psychology information, based on questionnaire information regarding the product input by the person (Scudillo, In one embodiment, a decision tree (also referred to as a binary tree) context-aware data algorithm allows for presenting a series of questions about specific shopper context data features that each gets an answer of yes or no. These questions are arranged in an order that allows for narrowing down on the attributes/characteristics of shopper context aware data to be classified. These questions will be asked until it is determined which of one of two categories ( classification groups) it will belong to. The questions will branch (binary split) to other questions based on yes or no answers, the other questions at the same depth in the decision tree are not test or traversed. When no further questions remaining in series of questions branch, it can be determined which of two groups the specific of shopper context-aware data feature belongs to. The decision tree context-aware data algorithm classify by using binary decisions by reducing the amount of uncertainty with each answered question relative to the total number of questions in the entire decision tree. This allows decision tree, especially when the decision tree balanced symmetrically around the root, to be very effective classifiers [Scudillo, 0145, 0146]
Regarding claim 14 and represented claim 7, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Scudillo in view of Hualin-He, Schoen and Kuter teaches information processing apparatus and method, wherein the sales promotion measures are sales promotion measures for a plurality of products, and the evaluating processing compares effectiveness of the sales promotion measures for each of the products (Schoen, The customer impact is measured by correlating a display of a given image with the sales volume of products among customers who can be assumed to have viewed the image, in comparison with sales volume at other times. Analysis at the point of sale in this manner permits precise, immediate measurement of the impact of the promotional display) [Schoen, 0020].
Response to Arguments
Applicant's argument that pending claimed amended invention is eligible for patent under 35 USC 101 because claimed invention learns and adapts, which is a hallmark of a technical solution rooted in computer science, not a mere business method is acknowledged and considered.
However, upon further review, it is deemed that the amended claimed invention is not eligible for patent under 35 USC 101, and applicant’s arguments have been responded in Rejection under 35 USC 101 section.
Applicant's argument that pending claimed amended invention is eligible for patent because cited prior art does not teach the added limitations in the amended invention is acknowledged and considered.
However, while performing an updated search, new references were found that teach the added limitations and have been cited in this office action. Therefore, applicant’s arguments are moot under new grounds of rejection.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Naresh Vig whose telephone number is (571)272-6810. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 06:30a - 04:00p.
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/NARESH VIG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622
March 26, 2026
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