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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
2. In the amendment filed on June 05, 2026, the examiner acknowledges the following:
3. Claims 1, 3, 11 and 12 were amended.
4. Claim 3 was amended as suggested by the Examiner; therefore, the previous objection to the claims is withdrawn by the Examiner.
5. Currently, claims 1 – 12 are pending and they are being considered for examination.
Response to Arguments
6. Applicant's arguments filed on June 05, 2026, have been fully considered and they are not persuasive. On pages 08 - 10, Applicant argues about that Nomura does not teach a first capturing unit, a second capturing unit and a capturing-signal generator to generate a second capturing image signal and that Nomura does not teach “edge of a medium”.
The examiner respectfully disagrees: Nomura teaches the edge of a medium in paragraphs [0004; 0061; 0068 (specifically a medium with four (4) edges); 0095 (the edge of a medium sheet; 103; 109 (edge of the sheet outline).
As for the first capturing unit and second capturing unit, it does not use the term camera, thus, any image obtention can be interpreted as first capturing or second capturing wherein the image can be obtained from any image file, from a book, from a cell/mobile phone memory, from the internet or from any storage medium storing images. As for receiving a first capturing image signal or any task in the image inspection system/apparatus as in Nomura, the controller 101 starts any job/procedure/task based on the on the job as prescribed in step S15 of Fig 6 (See [0064; 0094]), which happens after a job is selected.
Applicant has just relocated the limitations of the claims around and the amendment presented did not include any of the limitations of the claims which were objected as allowable subject matter into the newly amended claims. What was done for the amendment does not change the scope of the claims or add anything that would make the claims allowable over the prior/related art of record. For example, claim 1 is pretty much the same as the original version of it
In conclusion, claims as amended are not allowable, since the claim language is still too broad; it does not clearly express what Applicant sees as his/her invention. A new art found by the Examiner can be added to Nomura as to reject the claims. Nomura will be used wherever they still apply. See the rejections below for more details.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
7. 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 of this title, 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, 5, 6, 11 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Shoichi Nomura, US 2022/0182509 A1, hereinafter Nomura” in view “Hirotake Seki, US 2023/0119179 A1, hereinafter Seki”.
Regarding claims 1 – 12:
Nomura teaches an image inspection apparatus comprising: a first reader that acquires a first read image by reading one side of a sheet so as to include a background, the sheet having an image printed thereon; a first background material that is provided at a position which serves as the background of the sheet in reading of the sheet by the first reader; a second reader that acquires a second read image by reading the other side of the sheet so as to include a background; a second background material that is provided at a position which serves as the background of the sheet in reading of the sheet by the second reader; and a hardware processor that acquires sheet outline information of the sheet from the first read image and the second read image, and measures misalignment of the image with respect to the sheet based on the acquired sheet outline information, wherein the hardware processor acquires a first read image and a second read image by causing each of the first background material and the second background material to have a different density, and acquires sheet outline information of one read image that is one of the first read image and the second read image by performing estimation of estimating the sheet outline information of the one read image based on sheet outline information of the other of the first read image and the second read image, wherein the hardware processor performs the estimation in response to failure to extract the sheet outline information from the one of the first read image and the second read image.
Seki teaches an inspection system comprising: a plurality of image capturing systems each of which includes: an irradiation unit that irradiates a terahertz wave to an inspection target, and an image capturing unit that captures an image of the inspection target by detecting a reflected wave from the inspection target that has been irradiated with the terahertz wave by a corresponding irradiation unit, and at least one processor or circuit configured to function as: a control unit configured to control the irradiation unit and the image capturing unit of each of the plurality of image capturing systems, wherein the plurality of image capturing systems includes: a first image capturing unit, a first irradiation unit corresponding to the first image capturing unit, and a second irradiation unit that does not correspond to the first image capturing unit but corresponds to a second image capturing unit and in which the irradiated terahertz waves are directly incident to the first image capturing unit, and wherein the control unit is configured to control the plurality of image capturing systems such that the timing of a period of image capturing of the first image capturing unit and the timing of a period of irradiation of the terahertz wave of the second irradiation unit is different, wherein the control unit is further configured to control the image capturing system so as to have: a first image capturing period during which the image of the inspection target is captured in a state in which the terahertz waves are irradiated by each of an irradiation unit, a second image capturing period during which an image of the inspection target is captured in a state in which each of the irradiation units is not irradiating, and a non-image capturing period during which image capturing is not performed.
Regarding Claim 1:
As for claim 1, Nomura teaches,
An image inspection apparatus (Fig 1, image forming/inspection apparatus 100. See [0027 – 0042]) comprising: a first capturing unit to capture ( Fig 1, reading unit 170 including a first image reader 170a (it corresponds to the first image capturing unit), which reads/acquires an image in one side of the sheet to obtain a read image (first image) and it is capable of getting the image of an medium paper sheet placed on the sheet tray 105 (See [0028; 0038; 0039]). Fig 7 shows that it uses markers to adjusts the inner sides of the four edges of the sheet (See [0068])), upon receiving a first start-capturing-image signal indicating detection of an edge of a medium (Fig 7 shows that it uses markers to adjusts the inner sides of the four edges of the sheet (See [0068])), a first image of one surface of the medium (Fig 1, reading unit 170 including reader 170a (See [0028; 0038]). For example Fig 5 shows a first image and the direction the paper sheet is moving, wherein the markers indicate the positions of the edges of the paper sheet (See [0060; 0061])); a second capturing unit to capture a second image of the other surface of the medium (Fig 1, reading unit 170 includes a second reader 170b, which acquires/reads an image in a second side of the sheet to obtain a read image (second read image) and it is capable of getting an image of the other side of the medium or paper sheet placed on the sheet tray 105. It acquires the sheet outline for determining its edges. See [0028; 0038; 0039])); and a capturing-signal generator (Fig 1 the controller 101, the reading unit 170 and the image analyzer 090 constitute the image inspection apparatus (See [0043]), wherein the controller, which includes a CPU, a ROM and RAM memories, corresponds to the capturing/acquiring signal generator since it is capable of starting for example a printing job or another job when a job is selected using a program stored at the RAM memory, which is capable of acquiring/capturing image signals after calibration (See [0089; 0093]) ) to generate a second capturing-image signal for causing the second capturing unit to capture the second image after a predetermined time has elapsed (It is understood that it is also capable of acquiring a second image after the first capturing/reading is finished (See [0050]) since the detection of the edge of the medium (The preliminary adjustment is an image position adjustment performed prior to printing based on the job so that a printout with the image printed at the correct position on the sheet is obtained from the beginning a job of printing (See [0067]). Fig 7 shows that it uses markers to adjust the inner sides of the four edges of the sheet (See [0068])).
Nomura teaches most of the limitations of claim 1; however, it does not detail the image capturing unit as a camera, which in the same field of endeavor is taught by Seki. Seki also teaches an inspection system as Nomura but including a plurality of cameras that capture images of a target 140 as seen in Fig 6 (See [0054; 0057; 0062 – 0066]), inspection device 130 with cameras 111a, 111b, 111c and 111d, wherein the image of a target is captured during irradiation of the target and an image for the nonirradiated target as seen in Fig 2. Fig 2 (See 0046 – 0048]) also indicates the sequence of images capture, wherein image 2 is captured after image 1, image 3 is captured after image 2 and so on, which implies that a predetermined/certain time has elapsed after image 1 was captured when image 2 was captured after image 1.
By using the various cameras of Seki to replace Nomura image readers for the first and the second image, wherein the target is illuminated from various angles as taught by Seki, that would improve the quality of the image obtained by the image capturing unit 111.
Regarding Claim 11:
The rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Claim 11 pertains to the method as for operating the image inspection apparatus of claim 1. In order to operate the image inspection apparatus of claim 1, it would have necessitated to perform the methos procedure as disclosed in claim 11. The limitations of claim 11 are similar to the ones discussed above for claim 1. As for
“the method comprising: generating a second capturing-image signal for causing the second capturing unit to capture the second image after a predetermined time has elapsed since the detection of the edge of the medium” (Nomura Fig 1 the controller 101, the reading unit 170 and the image analyzer 090 constitute the image inspection apparatus (See [0043]), wherein the controller, which includes a CPU, a ROM and RAM memories, corresponds to the capturing/acquiring signal generator since it is capable of starting for example a printing job or another job when a job is selected using a program stored at the RAM memory, which is capable of acquiring/capturing image signals after calibration (See [0089; 0093]) ). It is understood that it is also capable of acquiring a second image after the first capturing/reading is finished (See [0050]). The preliminary adjustment is an image position adjustment performed prior to printing based on the job so that a printout with the image printed at the correct position on the sheet is obtained from the beginning a job of printing (See [0067]). Fig 7 shows that it uses markers to adjust the inner sides of the four edges of the sheet (See [0068])).
As for the other limitations of claim 11 such as for a first and a second capturing unit, Nomura teaches most of the limitations of claim 1; however, it does not detail the image capturing unit as a camera, which in the same field of endeavor is taught by Seki. Seki also teaches an inspection system as Nomura but including a plurality of cameras that capture images of a target 140 as seen in Fig 6 (See [0054; 0057; 0062 – 0066]), inspection device 130 with cameras 111a, 111b, 111c and 111d, wherein the image of a target is captured during irradiation of the target and an image for the nonirradiated target as seen in Fig 2. Fig 2 (See 0046 – 0048]) also indicates the sequence of images capture, wherein image 2 is captured after image 1, image 3 is captured after image 2 and so on, which implies that a predetermined/certain time has elapsed after image 1 was captured when image 2 was captured after image 1.
By using the various cameras of Seki to replace Nomura image readers for the first and the second image, wherein the target is illuminated from various angles as taught by Seki, that would improve the quality of the image obtained by the image capturing unit 111.
Regarding Claim 12:
The rejection of claims 1 and 11 is incorporated herein. Claim 12 pertains to a non-transitory computer-readable medium for storing a program that when executed by one or more processors, performs the method of claim 11 as to operate the image inspection apparatus of claim 1. In order to operate an apparatus as disclosed in claim 1 using the method as disclosed in claim 11, it would have necessitated to have a program including the method steps stored in a non-transitory computer-readable medium as in claim 12. As for the program stored in a medium, Nomura teaches that the controller 101 uses a program stored in the ROM memory. See 0053; 0065].
Regarding Claim 5:
The rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. As for the medium color obtainer, Nomura, Fig 1, image former 150 prints the image based on the job setting information and the image data and it has the image forming unit for each color Yellow Y, magenta M, Cyan C, black K and special color S. See [0035; 0036].
Regarding Claim 6:
The rejection of claims 1 and 5 is incorporated herein. As for claim 6 limitations, Nomura teaches in Fig 1, first background member 171a; second background member 171b (See [0039]). As for the reflectance, the optical density is based on reflectance may be used but, in this embodiment, the tone value output from the reading unit 170 (the tone value of the read image) is used as the density. Specifically, among the tone values of the three channels (R, G, and B) of the read image, the tone value of the channel in which the difference between the tone value of the background (background material) and the tone value of the sheet is the largest is used as the density. See [0101].
Claim Objections
8. Claims 2 – 4 and 7 – 10 are objected because its dependence to a base rejected claim; however, they would be allowable if written in an independent form.
Conclusion
9. 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Conclusion
10. The prior art is made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
1. H. Seki, US 2023/0119179 A1 – it teaches an inspection system comprising a plurality of image capturing systems including a first image capturing unit, a first irradiation unit corresponding to the first image capturing unit, a second irradiation unit that does not correspond to the first image capturing unit but corresponds to a second image capturing unit and in which the irradiated terahertz waves are directly incident to the first image capturing unit, and a control unit that controls the plurality of image capturing systems such that the timing of a period of image capturing of the first image capturing unit and the timing of a period of irradiation of the terahertz waves of the second irradiation unit is different.
Contact
11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARLY S.B. CAMARGO whose telephone number is (571)270-3729. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00-5:00 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Lin Ye can be reached on 571-272-7372. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/MARLY S CAMARGO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2638
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