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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does 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
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1, 8-12, and 17-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rudnitsky et al. (US 2021/0121049, hereinafter Rudnitsky) in view of Abu-Tarif et al. (US 2021/0186667, hereinafter Abu).
Re claim 1, Rudnitsky discloses, an intraoral scanner comprising: a probe housing (20/26) disposed at a distal end of an elongate wand (fig 1, par [0063]); a window structure (65/38) coupled to the probe housing (fig 1), the window structure and the probe housing forming an interior volume, wherein the window structure has a concave transverse cross section (par [0063], fig 1); and a plurality of optical components (24) disposed within the interior volume, wherein the plurality of optical components comprise a first camera (24 left side of fig 1) having a first orientation and a second camera (24 right side of fig 1) having a second orientation that is different than the first orientation, wherein the first camera and the second camera are to capture images of dental sites (par [0066]).
Rudnitsky discloses the limitations of claim 1 but fails to explicitly disclose limitations which are disclosed by Abu as follows: a probe housing disposed at a distal end of an elongate wand (11), the probe housing forming an opening (fig 5); a window structure (23) disposed in the opening and coupled to the probe housing, (fig 5).
One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to combine a probe housing disposed at a distal end of an elongate wand, the probe housing forming an opening; a window structure disposed in the opening and coupled to the probe housing of Abu with the scanner of Rudnitsky in order to provide sufficient space for the imager producing a more efficient scanning procedure.
Re claim 8, the combination of Rudnitsky and Abu discloses the limitations of claim 1 including wherein: the first orientation of the first camera and the second orientation of the second camera are configured to cause about 20% to about 40% overlap of image capture between the first camera and the second camera (Rudnitsky fig 1).
Re claim 9, the combination of Rudnitsky and Abu discloses the limitations of claim 1 including wherein the first camera and the second camera are to capture images, wherein the images are to be used to perform model building via at least one of a correspondence algorithm or a trained machine learning model (Rudnitsky par [0072]).
Re claim 10, the combination of Rudnitsky and Abu discloses the limitations of claim 1 including wherein one or more of the plurality of optical components are configured to capture images of rearmost teeth in a mouth of a patient (Rudnitsky Abstract, fig 1, par [0089]).
Re claim 11, the combination of Rudnitsky and Abu discloses the limitations of claim 1 including wherein the first camera is to perform image capturing in the first orientation of a first side of the dental sites and the second camera is to perform image capturing in the second orientation of a second side of the dental sites to perform teeth wrapping imaging (Rudnitsky fig 1, par [0072]).
Re claim 12, the combination of Rudnitsky and Abu discloses the limitations of claim 1 including wherein a first central axis of the first camera is orthogonal to a first portion of the window structure, and wherein a second central axis of the second camera is orthogonal to a second portion of the window structure (Rudnitsky fig 1).
Claim 17 recites essentially the same scope as claim 1 except for, the window structure is configured to block back reflection crosstalk by the plurality of optical components, disclosed by Rudnitsky and Abu (Rudnitsky pars [0087]-[0088]).
Re claim 18, the combination of Rudnitsky and Abu discloses the limitations of claim 17 including wherein the plurality of optical components comprises cameras and projectors (Rudnitsky Abstract).
Re claim 19, the combination of Rudnitsky and Abu discloses the limitations of claim 17 including wherein the window structure is a single piece of glass formed via glass molding (Rudnitsky pars [0065] and [0084]).
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rudnitsky and Abu as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Atiya et al. (US 2022/0370176, hereinafter Atiya).
Re claim 2, the combination of Rudnitsky and Abu discloses the limitations of claim 1 but fails to explicitly disclose limitations which are disclosed by Atiya as follows: wherein the plurality of optical components comprises a first pattern projector (243, par [0040]), a second pattern projector (243, par [0044]), and a camera disposed between the first pattern projector and the second pattern projector (fig 1, par [0040]).
One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to combine wherein the plurality of optical components comprises a first pattern projector, a second pattern projector, and a camera disposed between the first pattern projector and the second pattern projector of Atiya with the scanner of Rudnitsky and Abu in order to generate a 3D model of the portion of teeth in the field of view of the imaging element using triangulation principles.
Claim(s) 20-24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rudnitsky as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Official Notice.
Re claim 20, Rudnitsky discloses the limitations of claim 17 but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the probe housing is wrapped by a heat sink metal structure that is in thermal contact with the probe housing.
Official Notice is taken to note that utilizing a heat sink metal structure is notoriously well known and used in the related art.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to combine wherein the probe housing is wrapped by a heat sink metal structure that is in thermal contact with the probe housing with the scanner of Rudnitsky in order to transfer heat outside of the device to protect electronic components.
Claims 21-24 would be obvious and expected by the combination of Rudnitsky and Official Notice.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 13-16 are allowed.
Claims 3-7 and 25-27 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.
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 JOEL W FOSSELMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-3728. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 - 5:00 M-F.
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, Twyler Haskins can be reached at (571)272-7406. 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.
/JOEL W FOSSELMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2639
Prosecution Insights