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 .
Claims 1-15 are pending.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d).
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 10/12/2023 and 11/03/2025 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information referred to therein has been considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 9 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 misses a semicolon at end of line 8.
Claim 9 recites in line 3 "one or" which should be amended to read “one or more”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(d)
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), fourth paragraph:
Subject to the [fifth paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA )], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends.
Claim 10 should depend from claim 9, not from itself.
Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(b)
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 5-6 and 9-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 9 recites “according to the method of claim 1” in lines 7-8. It is not clear which/how steps recited in claim 1 are incorporated into claim 9. For example, it is not clear how/whether the “set of digital images of a subject and/or scene” defined in claim 1 are related to the “set of digital images of one or more biometric features of a person” in claim 9? Please clarify.
Similarly, the scope of claim 15 is not clear for reciting “according to the method of claim 9”.
There are insufficient antecedent bases for the following underlined limitations:
Claim 5 recites "the luminous intensity of each digital image in the stack".
Claim 6 recites “the range of tonal values”.
Claim 9 recites on the bottom line “the digital image” (note that multiple digital images are defined earlier).
Claim 11 recites “the digital image”.
Claim 15 recites “the target biometric features of a person”.
Claim(s) not mentioned specifically is/are dependent on indefinite antecedent claims.
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 1, 3-5 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Patel et al. (hereafter referred to as “Patel”, "Live face video vs. spoof face video: Use of moiré patterns to detect replay video attacks." 2015 International Conference on Biometrics (ICB). IEEE).
Regarding claim 1, Patel discloses a method for detecting moiré pattern information in digital images, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving a set of digital images of a subject and/or scene, the set of digital images comprising images captured by one or more cameras (section 4.2 “first 5 frames” of video captured by smartphone. Fig. 5 shows live video frames)
processing each digital image in the set to determine sections of the imaged subject and/or scene containing moiré pattern information at the corresponding image resolution and/or exposure (section 3.2, each frame “is first divided into 32x32 patches … For each image patch, we use multiscale LBP (MLBP) to capture the characteristics of moiré patterns”.);
selecting digital images from the set with sections of the imaged subject and/or scene containing moiré pattern information (section 3.2, “for the face spoof detection using moiré patterns, we observe that, the moiré patterns in one of the channels (red, green and blue) of an input image can be more discriminative”. Section 3.3. “a SVM classifier outputs a confidence score for each video frame (live or spoof)”. The SVM classifier is therefore effectively selecting spoof frames based on distinctive characteristics of moiré patterns); and
generating a merged digital image for the captured subject and/or scene from the selected digital images, the merged digital image comprising the moiré pattern information detected in each of the selected digital images (the graphs shown in Fig. 9, individually or as a whole, can be seen as corresponding to the claimed “merged digital image” because they are generated for the selected spoof frames, and comprise the detected moiré pattern information (MLBP, DSIFT). Also see section 3.3 “we keep track of how many frames in each video are labeled as live or as a spoof”. The collection of spoof frames can also be seen as “a merged digital image” because it comprises moiré pattern information (Fig. 6) indicative of spoofing).
Patel states (first paragraph in section 4.2) that due to “continuous autofocus in smartphones, moiré patterns present themselves in frames with sharp focus”.
Patel does not expressly disclose that the set of digital images are captured at different resolutions and/or exposure.
However, it is quite common for video cameras or smartphones to perform both continuous autofocus (AF) and auto-exposure (AE). Auto-exposure automatically adjusts aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to achieve a balanced exposure based on the scene's lighting conditions. Continuous auto-exposure results in video frames with different exposure.
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains to yield the invention as described in claim 1 from the teachings of Patel.
Regarding claim 3, Patel discloses the method of claim 1, wherein processing the digital images comprises segmenting each digital image into a grid of predetermined dimensions (section 3.2: “decode each video into individual frames … Given an input frame …, it is first divided into 32x32 patches …”).
Regarding claim 4, Patel discloses the method of claim 3, wherein processing of the digital images comprises detecting in each digital image the grid sections comprising moiré pattern information (section 3.2: “For each image patch, we use multiscale LBP (MLBP) to capture the characteristics of moiré patterns”).
Regarding claim 5, Patel discloses the method of claim 4, wherein processing of the digital images comprises analysing the luminous intensity of each digital image in the stack both in spatial and temporal direction to determine a combined intensity profile for the set of digital images (second paragraph in section 4.2 “We analyzed the grayscale, and red, green and blue channels of the detected face image using 5 frames for voting and a concatenation of MLBP and DSIFT features. Table 4 shows that different color channels capture different amount of texture to represent moiré patterns”. The patches in each frame are at different spatial locations. The succession of the five video frames defines a temporal direction. Table 4 shows a combined intensity profile).
Regarding claim 7, Patel discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein generating the merged digital image comprises extracting a profile of the moiré pattern information (the graphs in Fig. 9 define a profile of the moiré pattern information (MLBP, DSIFT)).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 8 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all limitations of the base claim.
Claims 6 and 9-15 may be allowable if the rejections under U.S.C. 112(b) and 112(d) above are overcome.
As allowable subject matter has been indicated, applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with. See 37 CFR 1.111(b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LI LIU whose telephone number is (571)270-5363. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday, 8:00AM-4:30PM, EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Emily Terrell can be reached on (571)270-3717. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LI LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2666