DETAILED ACTION
Response to Arguments
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/04/2025 has been entered.
The Applicant has canceled claim(s) 3 and 9.
The application has pending claim(s) 1-2, 4, 6-8, and 10-20 (withdrawn claims 16-20 are withdrawn from further consideration).
In response to the Request for Continued Examination (RCE) filed on 12/04/2025:
The objections to the claims have been entered and therefore the Examiner withdraws the objections to the claims.
The claim rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph have been entered and therefore the Examiner withdraws the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph.
The claim rejections under 35 U.S.C. 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph have been entered, but the Applicant has not amended a few of the addressed 35 U.S.C. 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph issues and therefore the Examiner has once again addressed these issues.
Applicant's arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-2, 4, 6-8, and 10-15 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection because of the Request for Continued Examination (RCE).
Applicant's arguments filed 12/04/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The Applicant alleges, “The Office Action rejects claim 11 …” in page 7, and states respectively that Paul in further view of Alves and Istenes, alone or in combination, fail to teach, suggest, or disclose each and every limitation of claim 11. However the Examiner disagrees because Paul as modified by Alves and Istenes does indeed disclose the broadest reasonable claim language interpretation of such an amended claim 11. More specifically Paul as modified by Alves and Istenes further discloses wherein the compiler engine is configured to generate the probability value without using the alphanumeric character string generated by the vehicle recognition module (see Alves, col. 7 at lines 18-32 and 42-48, share confidence levels without the need to do character recognition on all images within the group). Further discussions are addressed in the prior art rejection section below.
The Applicant alleges, “As noted above, claim 1 has been amended …” in page 7 through “As such, Claim 1 is allowable …” in pages 7-8, and states respectively that neither Paul nor Alves, alone or in combination teach, suggest, or disclose each and every limitation of claim 1 as amended. However the Examiner disagrees because Paul as modified by Alves does indeed disclose the broadest reasonable claim language interpretation of such an amended claim 1. Further discussions are addressed in the prior art rejection section below. Therefore claims 1-2, 4, 6-8, and 10-15 are not in condition for allowance because they are not patentably distinguishable over the prior art references.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 at line 13: “associate with” should be -- associated with --.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-2, 4, 6-8, and 10-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
The Examiner has searched the entire specification and has not found any evidence that the application has support for claiming the currently amended specific steps of “identifying one or more possibilities … for each possibility … with each possibility … selecting the possibility …” [the Applicant’s originally filed disclosure only discloses and discusses probabilities and not possibilities, the two phrases having very different meanings and scopes] and still the previously amended specific steps of “to produce more automated reads while maintaining a low error rate” as recited in amended claim 1.
The Applicant is advised to either amend the claims further or show the Examiner clear support of possession in the specification for all the amended claim limitations with respective arguments showing and indicating that possession of such claim language is actually appropriate in terms of Written Description criteria [35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 1st paragraph].
Claims 2, 4, 6-8, and 10-15 are dependent upon claim 1 respectively.
Appropriate correction is required.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-2, 4, 6-8, and 10-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Re Claim 1: Due to the amendments, the claim limitation of “wherein the one or more image frames, or reads, include ...” lacks antecedent basis and also renders the claim indefinite because the license plate number (LPN) recognition module is configured to merely generate one or more image frames [as recited at lines 3-4 of amended claim 1] without any recitation of also generating reads. Further, the claim limitation “wherein a confidence level value is determined for each possibility based on confidence levels associate with each possibility for the current read and prior reads and selecting the possibility with the highest confidence level to produce more automated reads while …” also lacks antecedent basis and renders the claim indefinite for similar reasons as discussed above.
Re Claim 10 at lines 1-2: Due to the amendments [due to claim 9 being canceled], the claim limitation of “the compile engine is further configured to ...” lacks antecedent basis.
Re Claim 11 at line 3: Due to the amendments, the claim limitation of “the alphanumeric character string generated by the vehicle recognition module” renders the claim indefinite because the LPN recognition module generated the alphanumeric character string as recited in claim 1 and not the vehicle recognition module. Therefore “by the vehicle recognition module” should be amended back to recite -- by the LPN recognition module --.
Re Claim 14 at lines 1-2: Due to the amendments, the claim limitation of “the vehicle recognition module is configured to generate the alphanumeric character string from …” renders the claim indefinite because the LPN recognition module generates the alphanumeric character string as recited in claim 1 and not the vehicle recognition module. Therefore “the vehicle recognition module is configured” should be amended back to recite -- the LPN recognition module is configured --.
Claims 2, 4, 6-8, and 10-15 are dependent upon claim 1 respectively.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2 ,4, 8, and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Paul et al (US 2012/0155712 A1, as applied in previous Office Action) in view of Alves (US 9,405,988 B2, provided by Applicant’s Information Disclosure Statement IDS, as applied in previous Office Action).
Re Claim 1: Paul discloses an image processing system (see Paul, [0051], [0053]) comprising: an image frame capture device configured to extract one or more image frames from a video signal (see Paul, [0022], capturing and producing image(s) from a digital video recording camera); a license plate number (LPN) recognition module configured to generate one or more image frames, wherein the one or more image frames, or reads, include an alphanumeric character string representative of a license plate number (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0023], generate the license plate image by segmenting the captured image to isolate the license plate which includes an alphanumeric character string representation of a license plate number, [0051], [0053], computer processor implemented); and a vehicle recognition module, configured to identify one or more vehicle characteristics from the one or more image frames and associate the one or more vehicle characteristics with one or more alphanumeric descriptors, wherein the vehicle recognition module is further configured to generate a confidence level value associated with one or more alphanumeric characters, by extracting and identifying one or more possibilities for each alphanumeric character from the license plate number in the image frame (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0024], [0026]-[0027], [0030], auxiliary data [associated with e.g. vehicle specific image characteristic data: vehicle color, shape, design elements near the license plate, etc. determined by various image processing algorithms] is also determined and used in determining a correct vehicle license plate number, wherein the characters are further isolated from the license plate image and determine an associated confidence level for each recognized character [e.g. return a single possible match for each of the first five characters and return two possible matches, “B” or “3”, for the sixth character, wherein each character having an associated confidence], [0051], [0053], computer processor implemented).
However Paul fails to explicitly disclose where Alves discloses wherein a confidence level value is determined for each possibility based on confidence levels associate with each possibility for the current read and prior reads and selecting the possibility with the highest confidence level to produce more automated reads while maintaining a low error rate [this claim 1 recites various embodiments (“wherein the one or more image frames, or reads”) in the alternative manner via the claim limitation “or”, and Paul was used to already disclose a different particular alternative embodiment (“wherein the one or more image frames”) for this claim 1 and under the broadest reasonable claim language interpretation BRI this step of claim 1 is not necessarily performed] (however it is further noted that Alves does indeed make obvious such a claim limitation: see Alves, col. 3 at lines 24-44, col. 7 at lines 18-48, col. 9 at lines 2-6, col. 13 at lines 1-9, multiple reads over a period of time, the one with the maximum confidence level is selected).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Paul’s system using Alves’s teachings by including the dynamically adapted confidence level processing to Paul’s confidence level processing in order to improve the recognition of the license plate number of the same vehicle in grouped images while reducing processing time and power.
Re Claim 2: Paul further discloses wherein the vehicle recognition module comprises a feature recognition and classification engine, wherein the feature recognition and classification engine are configured to use machine learning techniques implemented by a neural network (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0023], neural network implemented).
Re Claim 4: Paul further discloses a database of predetermined alphanumeric descriptors, and wherein the vehicle recognition module is configured to obtain the one or more alphanumeric descriptors from the database of predetermined descriptors (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0023], [0026]-[0027], [0030]-[0031], [0034], entries in a database wherein auxiliary data is also used in determining a correct vehicle license plate number, [0051], [0053], computer processor implemented).
Re Claim 8: Paul further discloses wherein the vehicle recognition module is further configured to attach as metadata the one or more alphanumeric descriptors to the one or more image frames (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0023], [0026]-[0027], [0030]-[0031], [0034], auxiliary data and vehicle data, wherein the image is also stored with the auxiliary data [0051], [0053], computer processor implemented).
Re Claim 14: Paul further discloses the vehicle recognition module is configured to generate the alphanumeric character string from the one or more image frames using an optical character recognition (OCR) engine (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0023], using OCR, [0051], [0053], computer processor implemented).
Claim(s) 6-7, 10-13, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Paul as modified by Alves, and further in view of Istenes et al (US 2018/0107892 A1, as applied in previous Office Action). The teachings of Paul as modified by Alves have been discussed above.
Re Claim 6: Although Paul further discloses wherein the vehicle recognition module is further configured to generate an overall confidence value, by combining the confidence level values for each alphanumeric character to derive the overall confidence value, indicative of an overall confidence value that the one or more vehicle characters have been correctly identified (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0023], [0025]-[0027], [0030]-[0031], confidence numbers for each character in the license plate image are averaged together to determine the associated confidence level for that license plate, wherein auxiliary data is also determined and used in determining a correct vehicle license plate number, [0051], [0053], computer processor implemented), Paul [as modified by Alves] however fails to explicitly disclose where Istenes discloses generate an overall confidence value indicative of an overall probability that the one or more vehicle characters have been correctly identified (see Istenes, [0037]-[0039], a confidence level is a percentage that defines the likelihood of being correct).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Paul’s system, as modified by Alves, using Istenes’s teachings by including the probability indicative confidence level to Paul’s [as modified by Alves] confidence level in order to improve the recognition of the license plate number of the vehicle (see Istenes, [0037]-[0039]).
Re Claim 7: Paul as modified by Alves and Istenes further discloses wherein the vehicle recognition module is configured to generate the overall confidence value via a weighted average (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0023], [0025]-[0027], [0030]-[0031], confidence numbers for each character in the license plate image are averaged together to determine the associated confidence level for that license plate, [0051], [0053], computer processor implemented).
Re Claim 10: As to claim 10, the discussions are addressed with regard to claim 6 respectively. Further, Paul as modified by Alves and Istenes further discloses wherein the compiler engine is further configured to generate a probability value indicative of an overall confidence value that a vehicle has been identified by the image processing system (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0023], [0026]-[0027], [0030], [0034]-[0035], confidence numbers for each character in the license plate image are averaged together to determine the associated confidence level for that license plate, updated confidence level for each auxiliary data, [0051], [0053], computer processor implemented) (see Istenes, [0037]-[0039], a confidence level is a percentage that defines the likelihood of each character being correct). See claim 6 for obviousness and motivation statements.
Re Claim 11: Paul as modified by Alves and Istenes further discloses wherein the compiler engine is configured to generate the probability value without using the alphanumeric character string generated by the vehicle recognition module (see Alves, col. 7 at lines 18-32 and 42-48, share confidence levels without the need to do character recognition on all images within the group). See claims 1 and 6 for obviousness and motivation statements.
Re Claim 12: Paul further discloses at a vehicle profile database, wherein the vehicle profile database includes a plurality of previously saved vehicle profiles, each including at least one previous image data file with an associated license plate number and associated alphanumeric descriptors (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0023], [0026]-[0027], [0030]-[0031], [0034], entries in a database wherein auxiliary data is also used in determining a correct vehicle license plate number, wherein the image is also stored with the auxiliary data, [0051], [0053], computer processor implemented).
Re Claim 13: Paul further discloses wherein the compiler engine is configured to match the one or more image frames to one of the vehicle profiles using at least one of the one or more alphanumeric descriptors (see Paul, [0007], [0021]-[0023], [0026]-[0027], [0030]-[0031], [0034], entries in a database wherein auxiliary data is also used in determining a correct vehicle license plate number, wherein the image is also stored with the auxiliary data, [0035], the confidence level is updated for each auxiliary data that matches a stored record, [0051], [0053], computer processor implemented).
Re Claim 15: As to claim 15, the discussions are addressed with regard to claim 6 respectively. Paul as modified by Alves and Istenes further discloses wherein the vehicle recognition module is further configured to generate a license plate probability value indicative of a confidence that the license plate number has been correctly identified (see Istenes, [0037]-[0039], by extracting and correctly identifying the entire license plate number in the image, a confidence level is a percentage that defines the likelihood of the entire license plate being correct). See claim 6 for obviousness and motivation statements.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BERNARD KRASNIC whose telephone number is (571)270-1357. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon. - Thur. and every other Friday from 8am - 4pm.
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/Bernard Krasnic/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2671 January 20, 2026