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 § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-4 and 11-13 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Tan et al. “Identification for Recycling Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Plastic Bottles by Polarization Vision” (January 2021, cited in the IDS filed 7/22/2025) (hereinafter “Tan”).
Consider claim 1, Tan discloses a device comprising: processing circuitry ([Abstract]: “means of material identification of PET plastic bottle based on polarization vision”; [Section V]: “In addition to hardware improvements, such as illumination conditions and the processor, the choice of algorithm is also important”) configured to:
receive a polarised light image of an object at least in part made from polarising material ([Section 2]: “The PET plastic bottles identification system is based on polarization vision, as shown in Fig. 1.”);
detect the outline of the object from the polarised image (Fig. 3; “calculate the minimum area convex hull; [Section IV.A]: "the inner region of the convex hull is denoted as omega"));
determine the probability that the outline of the object is a stored outline; and on the basis of the determined probability being above a threshold ([Section IV.C]: “the labels of PET, PE, PP and PS were set as 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Three binary models PET-PE, PET-PP and PET-PS were trained by SVM. Using the training models to classify the test sample, three labels Ll, L2 and L3 were obtained”. Note, therefore the trained models represent a stored outline and the classification process is probabilistic); output a control signal indicating a positive match ([Section V]: “The results of 20 random training tests are shown in Table 1, it can be seen that although different training sets have some impacts on the results, most recognition rates are more than 90%.”; also see Fig. 1: PET bin and non-PET bin).
Consider claim 2, Tan discloses the device according to claim 1, wherein the object is at least part made from a transparent polarising material ([Section II]: “Flow chart of PET plastic bottles identification using polarization is shown in Fig.2. Firstly, the polarization intensity images were collected, the polarization degree and phase angle were obtained. Then the refractive index was approximately calculated by mirror reflection refractive index equation [28].”).
Consider claim 3, Tan discloses the device according to claim 1, wherein the object has a first part and a second part, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to receive the polarised light image of the first part and at least part of the second part ([Section IV.A]: “Then, convex hull of the whole region obtained by merging the remaining regions in the binary image was calculated, as shown in Fig.3, where the inner region of the convex hull is denoted as omega”. Note, therefore “merging the remaining regions” suggests a first part and second part according to a broadest reasonable interpretation).
Consider claim 4, Tan discloses a system comprising the device according to claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 and Fig. 1); an image sensor configured to output the polarised image of the object (Fig. 1: polarization CCD camera; and a light source (Fig. 1: light source).
Consider claims 11-13, the method is rejected along the same rationale as the system of claim 1-3, respectively.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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.
Claims 5, 7-9 and 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tan in view of US 20240364982 A1 to Sharma e al. (hereinafter “Sharma”).
Consider claim 5, Tan discloses the system and light source according to claim 4, but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the light source is a polarised light source.
In analogous art, pertaining to sorting containers in recycling environments, Sharma discloses wherein the light source is a polarised light source (Par. [0133]: “In still other arrangements, polarized light is used for illumination. Additionally, or alternatively, one or more polarization filters can be used at the image sensor, to attenuate light of an orthogonal polarization”).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of Tan in view of the above teachings of Sharma in order to reduce glare (Sharma: Par. [0134]).
Consider claims 7-8, Tan discloses the system according to claim 4, but fails to explicitly disclose the further limitations of claims 7-8. In analogus art, Sharma discloses wherein the light source and the image sensor are positioned such that the angle between the image sensor and the object and the light source and the object is in the range of 55° to 70° and wherein the angle is approximately 60°. (Par. [0119]-[0120]: “a recycling apparatus according to one embodiment of the present technology employs one or more cameras and lights sources to capture imagery depicting watermarked plastic containers traveling on a conveyor in a waste stream … In another arrangement, the light source is positioned to obliquely illuminate the camera target, i.e., the light source is oriented in a direction more than 50 degrees away from the orientation of the camera lens axis, as shown in FIG. 9”; also Par. [0071]: “the light source and camera can be placed other than as indicated by the Figures. They can be closely-spaced, e.g., within single-digit degrees) or further spaced. The light can illuminate the surface straight-down (90° incidence), or obliquely, such as with incidence angles of 80°, 60°, 300 or less.)”).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of Tan in view of the above teachings of Sharma because both Tan and Sharma pertain to imaging containers on a conveyor for sorting, and thus one would look to the other for obvious variations or improvements to their teachings, and because adjusting the placement of the camera and light source would have been obvious to try from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, with a reasonable expectation of success.
Consider claim 9, Tan in view of Sharma discloses the system according to claim 7, comprising a second light source, wherein the second light source is configured to be positioned above the centre of the object and is on at the same time as the light source (Fig. 1 of Tan shows a linked first and second light source above the object implicitly on at the same time, but Tan doesn’t explicitly describe the second light source positioned above the centre of the object. Sharma discloses a light source positioned above the centre of the object as shown in Fig. 9 and further teaches alternate embodiments with multiple light sources (Par. [0120]-[0121].)
The motivation to combine references is the same as regarding claim 7.
Consider claim 20, Tan discloses the method according to claim 11, but fails to explicitly disclose a non-transitory storage medium comprising computer readable instructions which, when loaded onto a computer, configures the computer to perform the method.
In analogous art, pertaining to sorting containers in recycling environments, Sharma discloses a non-transitory storage medium comprising computer readable instructions.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to implement the method of Tan on a non-transitory storage medium, such as taught by Sharma, because using generic computer components to automate or store a known process yields predictable results to a skilled person.
Claims 6 and 14 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tan in view of WO 2017/134086 Al to Veillon (cited in the IDS filed 7/22/2025).
Consider claim 6, Tan discloses the system according to claim 4, but fails to explicitly disclose the further limitations of claim 6. In analogous art, Veillon discloses wherein the image sensor is configured to capture a series of images of the object and the light source is configured to switch at the same frequency as the image sensor captures the series of images such that the light source is on when the image sensor captures each image in the series (Pg. 6 Ln. 7-17: “An LED has among other things the advantage that it can be flashed, i.e. strobed, at an electronically controlled rate typically to produce light pulses of duration between 60-500 microseconds. By means of this flashing the emission of light from the LED can be synchronized for example with the feeding of an article onto the mount”; Pg. 11 Ln 9-20: “This time, and the rotation speed of the mount 40 may be set experimentally, for example related to the pulse (strobing) speed of the light source 11, and for example related to the number of images of the vial required during a full rotation of vial 30.”).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of Tan in view of the above teachings of Veillon in order to synchronize the emission of light from the LED the position and/or rotation of the article (Veillon: Pg. 6 Ln. 7-17).
Consider claim 14, the method is rejected along the same rationale as the system of claim 6.
Claims 10 and 19 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tan in view of Sharma, further in view of US 20240391110 A1 to Eto et al. (hereinafter “Eto”).
Consider claim 10, Tan in view of Sharma discloses the system according to claim 5, and Tan discloses wherein the image sensor is configured to capture an image containing an object
Tan and/or Sharma fails to explicitly disclose the image containing a plurality of objects and processing the outline of each object as claimed.
In analogous art, Eto discloses analyzing an image containing a plurality of objects and recognizing the outline of each object (Par. [0060]-[0061]: “the recognizer 322 can use any image recognition technology to identify the position, orientation, shape, type, and the like of the object O in the image from the image data … In a case in which the plurality of objects O are included in the image, the recognizer 322 can divide the image into a plurality of segments for each object O so that one object O is included in each segment.”).
Therefore, the combination of Tan, Sharma and Eto disclose wherein the image sensor is configured to capture an image containing a plurality of objects; and the device is configured to determine the probability that the outline of each object is a stored outline and on the basis of the determined probability being above a threshold for each object; output a control signal indicating a positive match for each object.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of modified Tan further in view of the above teachings of Eto for the recognizable benefit of improving the speed of object recognition.
Consider claim 19, the method is rejected along the same rationale as the system of claim 10.
Claims 15-18 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tan in view of Veillon, further in view of Sharma.
Consider claim 15, modified Tan discloses method and light source according to claim 14, but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the light source is a polarised light source.
In analogous art, pertaining to sorting containers in recycling environments, Sharma discloses wherein the light source is a polarised light source (Par. [0133]: “In still other arrangements, polarized light is used for illumination. Additionally, or alternatively, one or more polarization filters can be used at the image sensor, to attenuate light of an orthogonal polarization”).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of modified Tan further in view of the above teachings of Sharma in order to reduce glare (Sharma: Par. [0134]).
Consider claims 16-17, modified Tan discloses the method according to claim 14, but fails to explicitly disclose the further limitations of claims 16-17. In analogus art, Sharma discloses positioning an image sensor capturing the series of images and the light source such that the angle between the image sensor and the object and the light source and the object is in the range of 55° to 70°; and wherein the angle is approximately 60° (Par. [0119]-[0120]: “a recycling apparatus according to one embodiment of the present technology employs one or more cameras and lights sources to capture imagery depicting watermarked plastic containers traveling on a conveyor in a waste stream … In another arrangement, the light source is positioned to obliquely illuminate the camera target, i.e., the light source is oriented in a direction more than 50 degrees away from the orientation of the camera lens axis, as shown in FIG. 9”; also Par. [0071]: “the light source and camera can be placed other than as indicated by the Figures. They can be closely-spaced, e.g., within single-digit degrees) or further spaced. The light can illuminate the surface straight-down (90° incidence), or obliquely, such as with incidence angles of 80°, 60°, 300 or less.)”).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of modified Tan in view of the above teachings of Sharma because both Tan and Sharma pertain to imaging containers on a conveyor for sorting, and thus one would look to the other for obvious variations or improvements to their teachings, and because adjusting the placement of the camera and light source would have been obvious to try from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, with a reasonable expectation of success.
Consider claim 18, modified Tan discloses the method according to claim 16, comprising positioning a second light source above the centre of the object and is on at the same time as the light source (Fig. 1 of Tan shows a linked first and second light source above the object implicitly on at the same time, but Tan doesn’t explicitly describe the second light source positioned above the centre of the object. Sharma discloses a light source positioned above the centre of the object as shown in Fig. 9 and further teaches alternate embodiments with multiple light sources (Par. [0120]-[0121].)
The motivation to combine references is the same as regarding claim 16.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 20250008228 A1 to Komatsu et al. discloses using a polarization camera to detect and inspect a transparent object in a manufacturing line of a factory relevant to the independent claims.
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STEPHEN R. SMITH
Examiner
Art Unit 2484
/THAI Q TRAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2484
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