DETAILED ACTION
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements submitted on 10/23/2024 and 07/02/2025 have been considered by the Examiner and made of record in the application file.
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 USC 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The independent claims are directed to the abstract idea of observing a customer, describing the customer’s appearance or action, determining whether the customer is engaging in suspicious activity, and warning store personnel, which is a mental process. The additional elements (camera, terminal, server, network interface, processor, computer model) do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they are recited generically and just acquire an image, process information, make a suspiciousness determination, generate a warning, transmit the warning and output the warning. The independent claims do not recite a specific improvement in the technology and the additional elements amount to no more than using generic computer components to automate the abstract idea. The dependent claims are rejected for similar reasons.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Crisfalusi (US 2024/0144689 A1) in view of Ohayon (US 2024/0054233 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 11, and 20, Crisfalusi discloses a (Crisfalusi discloses a retail store behavior detection system for shoplifting, see paragraphs 7, 38 and 42)
[claim 20: a non-transitory computer readable storage medium that stores a program causing a computer for managing a camera installed in a store and a terminal operated by a store clerk in the store, to execute a method comprising: (paragraph 177])
a camera installed in the store; (paragraphs 38 and 42)
a server for managing the camera (Crisfalusi discloses video frames transmitted to a central server for processing, with server side modules for tracking, behavior detection, suspect activity detection, scoring, and message issuance, see paragraphs 42, 49-50, 73, 89 and 170)
a network interface connectable to the camera (paragraph 42)
a processor configured to: (paragraphs 42-43)
acquire an image captured by the camera, (Crisfalusi discloses receiving a stream of video frames from a plurality of video sensors; a video frame is the acquired image, see paragraphs 42-43 and 175)
input the acquired image to a computer model (Crisfalusi discloses ML processing of video frames, including HCM machine learning detection and UniPose neural network pose estimation, see paragraphs 52 and 76) and generate using the computer model in response to the input of the acquired image first text data indicating at least one of a facial expression, an appearance, and an action of a customer shown in the image, (Crisfalusi discloses appearance semantic features and action labels, including picking, dropping, bending, squatting, or throwing, see paragraphs 62-64 and 78-79) wherein the computer model has been trained using: images each showing a customer, and text data indicating at least one of a facial expression, an appearance, and an action of the customer, (Crisfalusi discloses training data made of video frames containing persons and corresponding XML and CSV labels and annotations, including customer, staff, child labels and client identifiers. Crisfalusi also trains trajectory classification with manually labelled normal and suspect data, see paragraphs 60-61, 68-71 and 85)
determine whether the customer shown in the image is engaging in a suspicious activity based on the first text data, (Crisfalusi discloses that action labels, trajectory labels, object IDs and locations form behavioral features; SADU receives those features and detects suspect activities using Suspect Activity Modules, see paragraphs 88-96)
upon determining that the customer is engaging in a suspicious activity, generate a warning message (Crisfalusi discloses generating notification messages such as alarm or severe when a behavior score meets or exceeds a threshold, see paragraphs 170 and 174)
control the network interface to transmit the generated warning (Crisfalusi discloses issuing the message to a security officer, paragraph 174)
Although Crisfalusi discloses a retail store behavior detection system for shopping, Crisfalusi fails to specifically disclose a POS system, a terminal operated by a store clerk in the store, the warning messaging indicates one of a facial expression, appearance and action of a customer and wherein the terminal is configured to output the warning message upon receipt thereof.
In related art, Ohayon discloses a POS system, a terminal operated by a store clerk in the store, (Ohayon discloses transmitting warning or alert messages to predefined parties and hardware output and display components, see paragraphs 31 and 179) the warning messaging indicates one of a facial expression, appearance and action of a customer (Ohayon discloses machine learning, deep learning, AI and LLM engines and multimodal engines that process images, video and data prompts. Ohayon reinforces text generation from images by teaching image captioning plus LLM generation of detailed textual descriptions and textual feature lists, see paragraphs 48 and 81-83) and wherein the terminal is configured to output the warning message upon receipt thereof. (Ohayon discloses sending notification messages to predefined parties and a transceiver able to send and receive data, see paragraphs 31 and 179)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teachings of Ohayon into the teachings of Crisfalusi to effectively improve the clarity and usability of the alert.
Regarding claims 2 and 12, Crisfalusi, as modified by Ohayon, discloses the claimed invention wherein the server includes a memory that stores keywords related to the suspicious activity, and the processor determines that the customer is engaging in the suspicious activity when the first text data includes one of the keywords. (paragraphs 78-79, 88-89, 91-96 and 88-103)
Regarding claims 3 and 13, Crisfalusi, as modified by Ohayon, discloses the claimed invention wherein the keywords stored in the memory indicate actions that can be taken by customers in the store, and the processor determines that the customer shown in the image is engaging in the suspicious activity when the first text data indicates one of the actions indicated by the stored keywords. (paragraphs 74-79, 93, 109-118)
Regarding claims 4 and 14, Crisfalusi, as modified by Ohayon, discloses the claimed invention wherein the processor is configured to input the first text data to another computer model to generate the warning message. (paragraphs 78-79, 88-89 and 170-174; also see Ohayon, paragraphs 20 and 31)
Regarding claims 5 and 15, Crisfalusi, as modified by Ohayon, discloses the claimed invention wherein said another computer model is a large language model that has been trained to generate a warning message for warning a store clerk of a suspicious activity by a customer in response to an input of one of a facial expression, an appearance, and an action of the customer that are associated with the suspicious activity. (Ohayon: paragraphs 5, 12, 20 and 31)
Regarding claims 6 and 16, Crisfalusi, as modified by Ohayon, discloses the claimed invention wherein the camera is configured to include, in the image, location data indicating a location of the camera, and the processor is configured to: determine a location of the customer based on the location data included in the image, generate second text data indicating the location of the customer, and input the first and second text data to another computer model to generate the warning message. (paragraphs 71-74, 86-89; also see Ohayon, paragraph 5)
Regarding claims 7 and 17, Crisfalusi, as modified by Ohayon, discloses the claimed invention wherein the terminal is configured to display a screen on which the warning message is displayed. (paragraphs 170-174; also see Ohayon, paragraphs 20 and 31)
Regarding claims 8 and 18, Crisfalusi, as modified by Ohayon, discloses the claimed invention wherein the terminal is a POS terminal for performing a checkout process. (paragraph 58)
Regarding claims 9 and 19, Crisfalusi, as modified by Ohayon, discloses the claimed invention wherein the terminal is a mobile terminal carried by the store clerk in the store. (paragraph 174; also see Ohayon, paragraph 3)
Regarding claim 10, Crisfalusi, as modified by Ohayon, discloses the claimed invention wherein the camera is installed along an aisle in the store. (paragraphs 16, 38 and 42)
Conclusion
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/BOBBAK SAFAIPOUR/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665
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