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 § 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.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because it is directed to a computer program.
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 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 1-3, 9, 10-12 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D11 or in view of D22 and further in view of D33 or D44.
With regard to claim 1, D1 teach image processing system for processing images received from an imaging device (104) mounted at a head of a personal care device (100), comprising: a processor (110), which is configured to: receive (302) a sequence of images from the imaging device at the head of the personal care device, the personal care device comprising cleaning elements visible in at least one of the images in the sequence of images (see D1 fig. 4, ¶ 41: toothbrush including a camera and light source to capture images, ¶¶ 53-54: computer processor; see also D2 fig. 3, ¶¶ 231, 233, 298: tooth brush head with camera and light projector to capture images, see ¶¶ 70-73: computer processor).
Neither D1 nor D2 teach process (312) the sequence of images to generate a background image with moving parts in the sequence of images removed such that the cleaning elements of the personal care device are removed from the background image. However, D3 teach the missing features (see abstract, fig. 1, § 3.2: background image generated by removing moving foreground objects). See also D4 abstract, ¶¶ 5, 98, 115, 135, 137: separating background from foreground.
One skilled in the art before the effective filing date would have found it obvious to combine the teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. In particular, it would have been obvious to incorporate known teachings of generating a background image by removing foreground objects such as moving objects as taught by D3 and D4 into the configuration of D1 or D2, yielding predictable and enhanced results. The motivation would have been to remove moving or blurred portions of the image in order to analyze the static portion such as the teeth for monitoring teeth cleaning and oral health.
With regard to claim 2, D3 teach system of claim 1, wherein the processor is adapted to process the sequence of images to generate the background image by using a median filter on the sequence of images (see abstract, fig. 1, § 3.2: median filter). See also D4: abstract, ¶¶ 5, 98, 115, 135, 137: median filter. The motivation for combining the references is the same as stated above.
With regard to claim 3, D3 teach system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to iteratively update (314) the background image using the latest available image in the sequence of images (see abstract, fig. 1, § 3.3: background image is updated based on new input images). See also D4 abstract, ¶ 115: updating background.
With regard to claim 9, see discussion of claim 1. D1 and D2 teach a brush head comprising bristles, an imaging device and a lighting system (see D1 fig. 4, ¶ 41: toothbrush including a camera and light source to capture images, ¶¶ 53-54: computer processor; see also D2 fig. 3, ¶¶ 231, 233, 298: tooth brush head with camera and light projector to capture images, see ¶¶ 70-73: computer processor).
With regard to claims 10-12 and 15, see discussion of corresponding claims above.
Claims 4-8, 13-14 are 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.
Pertinent Art
Gerhardt et al. (US 2022/0192807) teach a toothbrush head with a camera.
Conclusion
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/AVINASH YENTRAPATI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2672
1 US Publication No. 2017/0135464.
2 US Publication No. 2023/0099863.
3 Zhang, Ruolin, and Jian Ding. "Object tracking and detecting based on adaptive background subtraction." Procedia Engineering 29 (2012): 1351-1355.
4 US Publication No. 2017/0161905.
Prosecution Insights