DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
Applicant's response to the last Office Action, filed on 1/12/2026 has been entered and made of record.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1, 9, 10 have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
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 § 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 2, 7-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Anderson et al. (US 2023/0260183) in view of Matsunaga (US 2015/0131856).
Regarding claim 1, Anderson teaches an image processing apparatus comprising:
at least one memory configured to store one or more instructions (see figure 1, figure 6); and
at least one processor configured to execute the one or more instructions to: generate the search query comprising at least one of text data and numerical data by analyzing an input digital image to extract (see para. 0081, Anderson discusses a search query that includes a text string);
pose information indicating a pose of a body of a person by detecting a plurality of keypoints of the body using a computer vision algorithm on the input digital image (see para. 0081-0082, Anderson discusses a pose of a human in an image); and
appearance information indicating an appearance of the person (see para. 0081-0087, Anderson discusses detecting feature vectors, pose, and joint motion of the human); and
search for an intended image from a plurality of reference digital images stored in a storage unit by comparing the search query against metadata associated with the plurality of reference images, the metadata being stored in the storage unit, (see para. 0046, 0081-0087, Anderson discusses comparing the query feature vectors with the stored feature vectors associated with reference images).
Anderson does not particularly disclose wherein the appearance information indicates at least one of: whether a predetermined kind of a wearing object is worn, whether a predetermined kind of a wearing object is worn on a predetermined portion of a body, whether a wearing object having a predetermined pattern is worn, and whether a wearing object having a predetermined pattern is worn on a predetermined portion of a body.
However, Matsunaga teaches wherein the appearance information indicates at least one of: whether a predetermined kind of a wearing object is worn, whether a predetermined kind of a wearing object is worn on a predetermined portion of a body, whether a wearing object having a predetermined pattern is worn, and whether a wearing object having a predetermined pattern is worn on a predetermined portion of a body (see para. 0025, Matsunaga discusses determining in images whether a person is wearing a glove with feature such as color or pattern).
Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Anderson with Matsunaga to derive at the invention of claim 1. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform image search.
The determination of obviousness is predicated upon the following: One skilled in the art would have been motivated to modify Anderson in this manner in order to improve image search by extracting important regions of a person such as facial region. Furthermore, the prior art collectively includes each element claimed (though not all in the same reference), and one of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements in this manner explained using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a fundamental operating principle of Anderson, while the teaching of Matsunaga continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result of extracting facial regions to properly search images related to a person. The Anderson and Matsunaga systems perform human feature extraction, therefore one of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonable expectation of success in the combination. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Regarding claim 2, Matsunaga teaches wherein the predetermined portion is a head, a right hand, a left hand, a right arm, a left arm, a right foot, or a left foot (see para. 0025, Matsunaga discusses determining in images whether a person is wearing a glove with feature such as color or pattern).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 2. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Anderson with Matsunaga to derive at the invention of claim 2. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform an image search.
Regarding claim 7, Matsunaga teaches wherein the processor is further configured to execute the one or more instructions to: receive a user's designation of a part of a body of a person (see para. 0025, Matsunaga discusses appearance of a person’s hand);
acquire partial pose information and partial appearance information corresponding to the designated part of the body (see para. 0025, Matsunaga discusses appearance of a person’s hand); and
search for an intended image from a plurality of reference images by using the acquired partial pose information and the acquired partial appearance information (see para. 0025, Matsunaga discusses determining in images whether a person is wearing a glove with feature such as color or pattern, and performing a search using pattern recognition).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 7. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Anderson with Matsunaga to derive at the invention of claim 7. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform an image search.
Regarding claim 8, Anderson teaches wherein the processor is further configured to execute the one or more instructions to: acquire an image as the search query, and also determine, based on the pose information, a partial region in the image in which a part of a body of a person specified by a user is present (see para. 0081-0087, Anderson discusses detecting feature vectors, pose, and joint motion of the human; see para. 0104, 0159, Anderson discusses searching upper or lower body regions); and
perform the search by using the partial pose information indicating a pose of the body of the person detected by analyzing the partial region in the image, and the partial appearance information indicating an appearance of the person (see para. 0081-0087, Anderson discusses detecting feature vectors, pose, and joint motion of the human; see para. 0090, Anderson discusses motion-based query, where the user performs a body movement; see para. 0104, 0159, Anderson discusses searching upper or lower body regions).
The same motivation of claim 1 is applied to claim 8. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Anderson with Matsunaga to derive at the invention of claim 8. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform an image search.
Claim 9 is rejected as applied to claim 1 as pertaining to a corresponding method.
Claim 10 is rejected as applied to claim 1 as pertaining to a corresponding non-transitory storage medium.
Regarding claim 11, Matsunaga teaches, wherein the appearance information indicates at least one of: whether a predetermined kind of a wearing object is worn on a right hand, a left hand, a right arm, a left arm, a right foot, or a left foot, and whether a wearing object with a predetermined pattern is worn on a right hand, a left hand, a right arm, a left arm, a right foot, or a left foot (see para. 0025, Matsunaga discusses determining in images whether a person is wearing a glove with feature such as color or pattern, and performing a search using pattern recognition).
Claim 12 is rejected as applied to claim 11 as pertaining to a corresponding method.
Claim 13 is rejected as applied to claim 11 as pertaining to a corresponding non-transitory storage medium.
Claims 5, 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Anderson et al. (US 2023/0260183) in view of Matsunaga (US 2015/0131856) in view of Sukegawa et al. (US 2013/0243274).
Regarding claim 5, Anderson teaches generate reference image pose information indicating a pose of the body of the person, based on a detection result of the keypoints (see para. 0081-0087, Anderson discusses detecting feature vectors, pose, and joint motion of the human; see para. 0090, Anderson discusses motion-based query, where the user performs a body movement; see para. 0104, 0159, Anderson discusses searching upper or lower body regions).
Anderson and Matsunaga do not expressly disclose wherein the processor is further configured to execute the one or more instructions to: analyze the reference image including a person, detect a plurality of keypoints of a body of the person, and analyze the reference image, and generate reference image appearance information indicating an appearance of the person; and correct the generated reference image pose information, based on reliability of the reference image appearance information.
However, Sukegawa teaches wherein the processor is further configured to execute the one or more instructions to: analyze the reference image including a person, detect a plurality of keypoints of a body of the person (see para. 0045, Sukegawa discusses extracting a plurality of face features), and analyze the reference image, and generate reference image appearance information indicating an appearance of the person (see para. 0045, Sukegawa discusses extracting a plurality of face features); and correct the generated reference image pose information, based on reliability of the reference image appearance information (see para. 0021, 0053, 0090, Sukegawa discusses correcting the person’s face direction display area subjected to input processing by the input processor, performs weighting based on the reliability of the feature points included in each person display area).
Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Anderson and Matsunaga with Sukegawa to derive at the invention of claim 5. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform image search.
The determination of obviousness is predicated upon the following: One skilled in the art would have been motivated to modify Anderson and Matsunaga in this manner in order to improve image search by correcting image data based on a calculation that indicates a reliability of an image. Furthermore, the prior art collectively includes each element claimed (though not all in the same reference), and one of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements in this manner explained using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a fundamental operating principle of Anderson and Matsunaga, while the teaching of Sukegawa continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result of correcting image data to properly search images related to a person. The Anderson, Matsunaga, and Sukegawa systems perform human feature extraction, therefore one of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonable expectation of success in the combination. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Regarding claim 6, Sukegawa teaches wherein the processor is further configured to execute the one or more instructions to: in a case where reliability of the reference image appearance information about a part of a body of a person is less than a predetermined reference value, delete information about a keypoint corresponding to the part of the body of the person from the reference image pose information (see para. 0117, Sukegawa discusses when an area concealed by a mask, a pair of sunglasses, or the like, removing the concealer and interpolating the image to generate person image data).
The same motivation of claim 5 is applied to claim 6. Motivation to combine may be gleaned from the prior art considered. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Anderson and Matsunaga with Sukegawa to derive at the invention of claim 6. The result would have been expected, routine, and predictable in order to perform image search.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 4 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: No prior art was found to claim “3. (Currently Amended): The image processing apparatus according to claim 1,
wherein the processor is further configured to execute the one or more instructions to:
in a case where the appearance information of the search query indicates that a predetermined kind of a wearing object is worn, and the predetermined kind of the wearing object is not detected from a person included in a reference image from among the plurality of reference images:
decide that the person included in the reference image is not wearing the predetermined kind of the wearing object in a case where a pose of a body of the person included in the reference image is a pose facing in a first direction; and
decide that it is unclear whether the person included in the reference image is wearing the predetermined kind of the wearing object in a case where a pose of a body of the person included in the reference image is a pose facing in a second direction.”
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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KENNY A CESE whose telephone number is (571) 270-1896. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Friday, 9am – 4pm.
If attempts to reach the primary examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Gregory Morse can be reached on (571) 272-3838. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/Kenny A Cese/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2663
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