DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 6/5/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1,5,9,13,15,17-18,20,22-23,25 and 27 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
The Prior 112(a),112(b) have been withdrawn
The Double Patenting rejections have been overcome by the Terminal disclaimer
Claim Objections
Claim 5 objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 5 recites “predetermined distances”. This should be “predetermined distance” similar to claim 1.
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.
Claim) 1,5,9,13,15,17-18,20,22-23,25 and 27 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.
Claim 1,5 and 9 recites “detect a plurality of objects in a state, each object of the plurality of objects representing a person, and the state being based on a distance between each of the plurality of objects being within a predetermined distance;
determine an occurrence of an abnormal state based on the plurality of objects in the state; “.
As amended the “state” is persons within a predetermined distance. The claim no longer requires that any person who has undergone a state change, therefore the scope encompasses determining abnormal state merely based on the proximity of peoples, such as random people standing around. The original disclosure does not support a claim limitation of this breadth. See paragraph 59-61, 128 and 152.
Claims 13,15,17-18,20,22-23,25 and 27 are rejected as dependent upon a rejected claim.
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.
Claim) 1,5,9,13,15,17-18,20,22-23,25 and 27 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.
Claim 1, 5 and 9 recites “and the state being based on a distance between each of the plurality of objects being within a predetermined distance;”. This claim can be interpreted in multiple different ways which differ in scope.
Each pairwise distance among all the objects must be within a predetermined distance (therefore small clusters)
Each object must be within the predetermined distance of at least one other object (therefore a chain of people can cause a large cluster)
A single object to another single objects distance would group all the plurality of objects
Each object must be within a predetermined distance of a common point (such as the representative position claimed earlier.
Some other interpretation.
Claims 15, 20,25, 17, 22, and 27 recites “the distance” and “each distance”. Similar to claim 1
Additionally “the distance” implies singular, whereas the independent claims have a plurality of distances.
Claims 13,15,17-18,20,22-23,25 and 27 are rejected as dependent upon a rejected claim.
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 ) 1,5,9,13,15,17-18,20,22-23,25 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to abstract idea (mental process) without significantly more. The claim(s) 1, 5 and 9 recite(s) “
"detect a plurality of objects in a state, each object of the plurality of objects representing a person, and the state being based on a distance between each of the plurality of objects being within a predetermined distance"; which is directed toward a mental process. For example a person can visually see an image detect one or more persons in a state such as walking in close proximity to each other such as a family group.
"determine an occurrence of an abnormal state based on the plurality of objects in the state.", which is directed toward a mental process. For example a person can visually see an image and determine when a child gets too far away from their family, by either stopping or walking slowly.
"one or more memories storing instructions" and "one or more processors configured to execute the instructions." These are generic computer components recited at a high level of generality. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
"control a displayed screen to display the plurality of objects with an element attached to the plurality of objects based on a representative position associated with the plurality of objects." This limitation merely outputs the result of the mental process by marking, on a display and is insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
None of the dependent claims recites an additional element that integrates the abstract idea into a practical application or amounts to significantly more. The dependent claims are therefore also ineligible.
1. An image processing device comprising: one or more memories storing instructions; and one or more processors configured to execute the instructions to:
detect a plurality of objects in a state, each object of the plurality of objects representing a person, (Zhang, Fig. 1, #105-107
PNG
media_image1.png
468
812
media_image1.png
Greyscale
)
and the state being based on a distance between each of the plurality of objects being within a predetermined distance; (Zhang, Fig. 9, #901; Col. 19 lines 9-53, “ Block 901 illustrates how to define a crowd region event. The user may first select a region of interest on the image (e.g., within the image space). Next, some crowd density threshold may be used to determine how much crowd is of interest. The thresholds may be the number of person within a certain radius of area. Hysteresis thresholds may be used for more robust performance. For example, if we define the crowd density as the number of person inside a 3 meter radius area, one may set two crowd density thresholds: T.sub.high=10 and T.sub.low=8. A region may be considered as a crowd region only if the corresponding crowd density is greater or equal than T.sub.high. A crowd region becomes non-crowd only if the corresponding crowd density becomes less or equal than T.sub.low. The crowd region may be defined by identified crowd and may change location and/or shape from frame to frame. A centroid of the crowd region may be used to describe the crowd location. “
PNG
media_image2.png
530
636
media_image2.png
Greyscale
)
determine an occurrence of an abnormal state based on the plurality of objects in the state; and (Zhang, Fig. 1 #108, Col. 8 Lines 1-24, “The blobs are tracked over time to form spatio-temporal targets in target tracking module 107, and finally, event detection module 108 detects the event of interest defined by the user using the output of the target detection and tracking process. Instead of or in addition to simple spatial grouping of foreground pixels into blobs, human detection module 106 uses calibration information and a convex region shaped human model to detect humans even in crowded scenarios. In some examples, no or minimal training is required in advance for detecting the human objects in the scene. And in the event detection module 108, some novel event detection approaches may be implemented, which may use the human detection results in human detection module 106.”; see claim 1 : “comparing the crowd density to a threshold; and providing at least one of a report, an alarm, and an event detection when the crowd density exceeds the threshold, “)
control a displayed screen to display the plurality of objects with an element attached to the plurality of objects based on a representative position associated with the plurality of objects.(Zhang, Fig. 7C and 13; Col. 20 Lines 16-29, “(83) FIG. 13 illustrates one example of defining of a crowd gathering spot. It includes an inner region as indicated by 1301 and an outer region as indicated by 1302. The two regions may be defined by a center point O, a short radius r and a long radius R. In this example, the crowd gathering spot may satisfy the following two criteria: The crowd density of the inner region must be greater or equal than a predefined threshold; The person count in the outer region must be smaller (e.g., 2 times, 4 times, 10 times, etc. smaller) than the person count in the inner region. Alternatively, the crowd density in the outer region must be smaller (e.g., 2 times, 4 times, 10 times, etc., smaller) than the crowd density in the inner region.”
PNG
media_image3.png
526
362
media_image3.png
Greyscale
PNG
media_image4.png
542
414
media_image4.png
Greyscale
)
Claims 5 and 9 are rejected under similar grounds as claim 1 above.
Claims 17,22 and 27 are rejected under similar reasoning as claim 1 above. The distance is 3m is real space, which has a corresponding equivalent distance in the display region.
Claims 13, 15, 18, 20, 23 and 25 are not rejected under prior art.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GANDHI THIRUGNANAM whose telephone number is (571)270-3261. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5PM.
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, Sumati Lefkowitz can be reached at 571-272-3638. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/GANDHI THIRUGNANAM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2672
Prosecution Insights