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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 8/13/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 8/13/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues, on pg. 8 of the Remarks, that the combination of references fails to disclose dragging a second area from the third location to a fourth location for tracking an increased number of frames to record, and more generally that none of the arts describe dragging a previously defined area from location to another for tracking to trigger an increased number of frames. Applicant specifically notes that Chen is directed to digital ink, and Venetianer (hereafter Ven) and Broemmelsiek (hereafter Broem) relate to video monitoring of environments. The examiner disagrees.
The applicant is arguing against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986). In this case Ven discloses using multiple defined areas such as the multiple tripwires shown in Fig 21a. Ven further teaches tracking objects to trigger processes, including triggering an increased frame rate, when tracked objects interact with the tripwires as described in pars. 135-138. Ven and Broem teach that a user may define areas, such as the tripwires, by using a mouse or other input device in conjunction with a graphical user interface. Chen teaches a drag and drop interface for graphical objects that allows the object to be moved from one location to another. Thus, in the combination a user may use the graphical interface, taught by Broem, to draw the tripwire areas and/or exclusion areas of Ven, ten use the drag and drop interface of Chen to move the drawn areas from a first, or third location to a desired second or fourth location in order to trigger the increased framerate of Ven when an event is detected. In this way the combination of Ven, Broem and Chen discloses each limitation of claim 1.
Applicant next argues, in the paragraph bridging pg. 8-9 of the Remarks, that Ven fails to disclose “increasing a number of frames to record” instead disclosing that video can be stored at a higher frame-rate. The examiner disagrees. In regard to video, frame-rate represents a number of frames per unit of time, usually expressed in frames per second. Hence increasing the frame rate at which video is stored also increases the number of frames to be stored as video stored at 10 frames per second will result in fewer stored frames than video stored at 30 frames per second for the same period of time.
Applicant further asserts, on pg. 9 of the Remarks, that the combination of Ven, Broem and Chen is improper under the 2010 KSR guidelines because the invention of Chen is not related to video surveillance and would result in extra work and greater expense to modify Ven and Broem. The examiner disagrees.
It has been held that a prior art reference must either be in the field of the inventor’s endeavor or, if not, then be reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor was concerned, in order to be relied upon as a basis for rejection of the claimed invention. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 24 USPQ2d 1443 (Fed. Cir. 1992). MPEP 2141.0199(a) indicates that in order for a reference to be ‘reasonably pertinent’ one of ordinary skill in the art would have consulted it and applied its teachings when faced with the problem that the inventor was trying to solve. In this case Chen is directed to obtaining and editing graphical objects drawn by a user. Ven and Broem are similarly directed to receiving user defined shapes drawn by a user in a graphical interface and locating those shapes in particular positions within the field of view of a camera. When faced with the problem of allowing a user to define the size shape and positions of the tripwire and exclusion areas of Ven, one of ordinary skill in the art would have looked to arts relating to receiving and editing user defined graphics as disclosed by Chen, as the drag and drop editing interface of Chen allows for quick and intuitive sizing and positioning of such user drawn graphics.
Applicant finally argues, on pg. 10 of the Remarks, that the inclusion of Chen with Ven and Broem would provide no benefit as the tripwire and exclusion areas of Ven and the zones of Broemmelsiek are properly set up and thus do not require editing. The examiner disagrees. While Ven and Broem each allow for user defined areas, they do not disclose a robust functionality to edit the areas once they are defined. One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that allowing for dragging, resizing and rotation of the user defined areas would be beneficial in cases of user input error or modification of existing zones in a simple and intuitive manner. Hence, inclusion of Chen allows for a user to simply modify a defined zone without having to create an entirely new zone and thus provides a substantial advantage in ease of use over prior arts Ven and Broem alone.
Applicant does not raise additional novel arguments in regard to the remainder of the claims.
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 (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 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) 1-3, 5, 7-15, 17, 19-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Venetianer et al (2008/0100704 hereafter Ven) in view of Broemmelsiek et al (2002/0008758 hereafter Broem) and in further view of Chen et al (2006/0061776).
In regard to claim 1 Ven discloses a method comprising:
determining a location of a first tracking area for tracking an object across a plurality of frames (Ven Fig. 5 and pars 155-164 note pars 156-157 detecting objects via motion or background change and par. 160 tracking detected objects areas including a first object area, finally note par. 190 distinguishing between trackable and untrackable areas);
receiving a third user input defining an action line relative to at least one frame of the video sequence, the action line at least partially defining a second area in a third location of the at least one frame (Ven Fig. 22 and pars 140-141 note receiving user input defining an exclusion zone at a location within a frame, also note pars 135-138 a different embodiment in which an action line area takes the form of a ‘virtual tripwire’)
tracking, across the plurality of frames, the first tracking area corresponding to the object (Ven Fig. 5 and pars 155-164 note blocks are tracked frame-to-frame to determine a trajectory over plural frames)
determining, in the first frame, based on tracking the first tracking area across the plurality of frames, an amount of overlap between the first tracking area and the second area at the fourth location (Ven Figs . 19-22 note pars 134-136 determining whether a red vehicle has crossed a virtual tripwire, which inherently requires determining that the vehicle has overlapped the line, further note pars 140-146 determining if a person (object) is within (overlapping) the exclusion zone).
increasing a number of frames to record in response to determining that the amount of overlap between the first tracking area and the second area passes a threshold (Ven Figs 19-20 and par 135-138 note determining that activity has occurred when a tracked object crosses one or more tripwires and pars 140-146 determining activity has occurred when a person is absent from the exclusion zone for more than a period of time, further note par. 81 video may be captured at a higher frame-rate when activity is detected).
Ven further discloses allowing a user to define various special image processing zones (Ven Fig. 22 and pars 135-138 and 140-141 note user defined ‘virtual tripwire’ zones and exclusion zones). It is noted that Ven does not disclose details of receiving user input setting the location of tracking areas. However, Broem discloses:
receiving a user input setting a location of a tracking area at a first location for tracking objects across a plurality of frames of a video sequence (Broem pars 24-29 note par. 24 user input devices such as a mouse or a trackball, further note the table in par. 25 a tracking zone may be defined in which objects appearing in a video are tracked, finally note par. 29 for user defining tracking zones).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would recognize the advantage of incorporating user defined tracking zones as taught by Broem in distinguishing the trackable and untrackable areas of Ven in order to gain the advantage of reducing false alarms as suggested by Broem (Broem pars 8 and 26 allowing a user to exclude zones in which tracking is likely to generate spurious results).
It is further noted that neither Ven nor Broem disclose dragging such zones from one location to another. However, Chen discloses a ‘drag and drop’ interface for image areas in which a region defined by a bounding box may be moved from a first location to a second location (Chen Fig. 9 and pars 74-75 note bounding box for image area that provides a drag and drop interface also note 80 the bounding box may be selected with a mouse to move the image area as part of the drag and drop interface).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize the advantage of incorporating a drag and drop interface to allow for a second and fourth user input to drag the tracking area and action line of Ven in view of Broem to be moved from a first location to a second location and a from a third location to a fourth location respectively for tracking to increase a number of frames to record in order to gain the advantage of allowing a user to intuitively correct the position, size and rotation of the tracking area and action line as suggested by Chen (Chen pars 68 and 75 note allowing a user to use editing operations).
In regard to claim 2 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Chen further discloses that the fourth user input defines an updated action line corresponding to at least a portion of the second area at the fourth location (Chen par. 80 note drag and drop interface which allows a user to move an image object to a different location). Ven further discloses that the amount of overlap passes the threshold based on the first tracking area crossing the updated action line (Ven par. 135 and 145 determining that a tracked object crosses a virtual tripwire hence an overlap threshold of 100%, or that the object is outside of the exclusion zone hence an overlap threshold of 0%).
In regard to claim 3 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Ven further discloses displaying the action line (Ven Figs 18-22 note displaying virtual tripwires and exclusion zones).
In regard to claim 5 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Chen further discloses that the user input includes a touch input received using a touchscreen (Chen par 48 note user inputs may be received via a touch pad and/or a touch screen).
In regard to claim 7 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Ven further discloses:
receiving a user selection of the object displayed in the at least one frame of the video sequence (Ven Fig. 17 and par. 126 note a user may select particular objects in the video to be tracked such as a red vehicle or a human object); and
determining the first tracking area based on the user selection of the object; (Ven par. 126 note object areas may be selected based on the type of object identified by the user) .
In regard to claim 8 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 7 above. Ven further discloses that the user selection is based on a shape selected by a user (Ven par. 126 and Fig. 17 note the user may select ‘vehicle’ shaped objects, or human shaped objects etc.).
In regard to claim 9 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Chen further discloses that the user selections may be made via a touchscreen interface (Chen par 48 note user inputs may be received via a touch pad and/or a touch screen).
In regard to claim 10 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Ven further discloses that tracking the first tracking area includes tracking the object (Ven pars. 160 note tracking detect objects as video primitives).
In regard to claim 11 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Ven further discloses that the action line is part of a bounding box (Ven Fig. 22 and pars 140-141 note the action line defines the ‘bounding box’ of the exclusion zone).
In regard to claim 12 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Ven further discloses increasing the number of frames to record including recording a burst of frames (Ven par. 81 note when activity is detected images are recorded at an increased framerate for the duration of the activity which is a ‘burst of frames’ compared to the ordinary low frame rate).
In regard to claim 25 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Ven further discloses increasing a rate of storage of frames (Ven par. 81 note when activity is detected images are recorded at an increased framerate)
Claims 13-15, 17,19-24 and 26 describe an apparatus comprising a memory and a processor that implement steps substantially corresponding to the method of claims 1-3, 5, 7-9, 10-12 and 25 above. Refer to the statements made in regard to claims 1-3, 5, 7-9, 10-12 and 25 above for the rejection of claims 13-15, 17, 19-24 and 26 which will not be repeated here for brevity. Ven further discloses a processor and a memory (Ven Fig. 1 and par. 91 note computer system 11 comprises a computer readable medium, further note pars 52-53 a computer system includes a processor and memory).
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JEREMIAH CHARLES HALLENBECK-HUBER whose telephone number is (571)272-5248. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.
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, William Vaughn can be reached on (571)272-3922. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JEREMIAH C HALLENBECK-HUBER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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