Prosecution Insights
Last updated: October 02, 2026
Application No. 18/871,672

APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR WHITEBOARD RECTIFICATION

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Dec 04, 2024
Priority
Jun 07, 2022 — provisional 63/349,777 +1 more
Examiner
BITAR, NANCY
Art Unit
Tech Center
Assignee
Canon Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
83%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
1y 0m
Est. Remaining
90%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 83% — above average
83%
Career Allowance Rate
806 granted / 975 resolved
+22.7% vs TC avg
Moderate +8% lift
Without
With
+7.7%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 10m
Avg Prosecution
23 currently pending
Career history
988
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
13.8%
-26.2% vs TC avg
§103
67.1%
+27.1% vs TC avg
§102
6.8%
-33.2% vs TC avg
§112
8.0%
-32.0% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 975 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 (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. Claim(s) 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al (US 2016/0216690) in view of Lee et al (A Camera pose estimation method for rectangle feature based visual SLAM) As to claim 1, Kim et al teaches the method for determining an aspect of ratio of a region in an image, the method comprising: obtaining, from an image, a two-dimensional projection of a region having a predetermined shape(generates a sliced two-dimensional (2D) section by slicing a hologram while performing translation in an optical axis direction,101, figure 1; operation 102, the 3D hologram distortion correcting apparatus obtains a sharp sliced image of the hologram from a sequence of images of generated sliced 2D sections using a focusing function of a camera.) located in three dimensions, the predetermined shaped region being geometrically distorted (the 3D hologram distortion correcting apparatus generates a sliced section of a designed 2D pattern while translating the 2D pattern in the optical axis direction, paragraph [0045]); determining a first set of points in the image that identifies a boundary of the predetermined shaped region; ( circular points present in each sliced image of the calculated sequence of the sliced 2D images I.sub.1′, I.sub.2′, . . . , I.sub.N′. Here, the circular points may be two-dimensionally projected spherical points. The 3D hologram distortion correcting apparatus may measure the distortion occurring due to the optical system of the display based on the circular points. The 3D hologram distortion correcting apparatus may estimate a distortion model of the planar grid structure through the optical distortion model fitting used to estimate the distortion occurring due to the optical system of the camera 423., paragraph [0074]). While Kim et al teaches the limitations above. Kim fails to teach “estimating an aspect ratio of the predetermined shaped region located in three dimensions based on the determined first set of points indicative of the boundary of the predetermined shaped region in the two-dimensional projection and rendering, on a display device, a corrected predetermined shape region that corrects the geometric projection distortions using the estimated aspect ratio. “ However, Lee teaches a warped rectangle feature as a quadrilateral in the image by the perspective transformation is reconstructed by the Coupled Line Camera algorithm. In order to fully reconstruct a rectangle in the real-world coordinate, the distance between the features and the camera is needed. The distance in the real-world coordinate can be measured by using a stereo camera. Using properties of the line camera, the physical size of the rectangle feature can be induced from the distance. The correspondence between the quadrilateral in the image and the rectangle in the real-world coordinate can restore the relative pose between the camera and the feature through obtaining the homography. In order to evaluate the performance, we analyzed the result of proposed method with its reference pose in Gazebo robot simulator ( abstract).Lee et al teaches a rectangle can be uniquely determined by the distance from the center to each vertex and the aspect ratio .In the line segment camera pair algorithm the distance between the center to each vertex is assumed to be 1 and the relative pose with the camera and the aspect ratio of the rectangle are obtained ( section 3.2) .Additionally, lee teaches restoring a rectangle using a line segment camera pair algorithm that can restore the shape of the original rectangle using the properties of the extracted quadrilateral (section 3.3 and figure 4).It is obvious before filing of the claimed invention to use the aspect ratio as taught by Lee et al in order to create accurate map by fusing geometric features and improve points lines segments and planes” . Thus, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. As to claim 2, Lee et al teaches the method according to claim 1, further comprising: determining, a second set of points surrounding the first set of points; and estimating the aspect ratio using both the first set of determined points and second set of determined points ( the segment camera pair restores the shape of the original rectangle by extracting a quadrilateral that satisfies the geometric condition, section3.1, 3.2) . As to claim 3, Lee et al teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the first set of points are determined by receiving input via a user interface that identifies each point in the first set of points ( see figure 2) . As to claim 4, Lee et al teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the first set of points are determined by automatically identifying points at which two lines of the predetermined region intersect ( intersection of lines see figure 1 and table 1). As to claim 5, Lee et al teaches the method according to claim 1, further comprising determining, from the image including the predetermined shaped region, a focal length of image capture apparatus that captured the image; and calculating one or more pose angles of the predetermined shaped region representing a rotation of the predetermined shaped region in the image relative to the image capture apparatus (section 4.2 teaches the pose estimation using the visual SLAM using rectangular features; figure 8) . As to claim 6, Lee et al teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined shaped region substantially rectangular where at least two sides are not parallel, and the rendered corrected shaped region corrects the geometric distortion causing the at least two sides to be substantially parallel using the estimated aspect ratio(section 4.2 teaches the pose estimation using the visual SLAM using rectangular features; figure 8). As to claim 7, Lee et al teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined shape region is a planar rectangular region, and the determined first set of points identify respective corners of the planar rectangular region in the two-dimensional projection( the camera pose is estimated using the reconstructed rectangle as input so the performance of pose estimation; section 4.2) . As to claim 8, Lee et al teaches the method according to claim 7, wherein rendering the corrected predetermined shaped region rendered is a rendered rectangular form of the two-dimensional projection of the planar rectangular region located in three dimensions corrected for geometric projection distortions in a rectangular form.( to separate the dependency on the rectangle extraction algorithm the rectangle was extracted as quadrilateral projected onto the camera using the ground truth positions of the rectangle center provided by the pinhole camera model and the simulator, section 4.1) The limitation of claims 9-16 has been addressed above. Contact Information Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NANCY BITAR whose telephone number is (571)270-1041. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 p.m.. 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, Mrs. Jennifer Mehmood can be reached at 571-272-2976. 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. NANCY . BITAR Examiner Art Unit 2664 /NANCY BITAR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2664
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Prosecution Timeline

Dec 04, 2024
Application Filed
Sep 22, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
83%
Grant Probability
90%
With Interview (+7.7%)
2y 10m (~1y 0m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 975 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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