DETAILED ACTION
Contents
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 2
Response to Amendment 2
Response to Arguments 2
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 3
Conclusion 13
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 .
Response to Amendment
This action is responsive to applicant’s amendment and remarks received on 10/2/25. Claims 1-9, 11-15 are currently pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 11, 12 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. Examiner notes there is no argument for the independent claims, but rather a naked assertion that the prior art does not teach the amendment.
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 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 claimedinvention 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, 5-6, 11-12, 14-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ma et al (US 9,633,268 B1) in view of Ben Shitrit et al (WO 2013/072401 A2).
Regarding claim 1, Ma teaches an image analysis apparatus, comprising: at least one memory configured to store instructions (see col. 14, lines 15-22; hardware with programs which can be stored in a computer readable storage medium such as ROM/RAM); and at least one processor configured to execute the instructions to perform operations (see col. 14, lines 15-22; hardware) comprising: acquiring a plurality of images continuous in time series (see col. 3, lines 5-15; for an image sequence of the gait video); detecting a person and a pose of the person in each of the plurality of images (see col. 3, lines 10-18; extracting an initial gait feature of a gait video of a person to be recognized comprises: (22) for an image sequence of the gait video, extracting a foreground silhouette image sequence using a Graph Cut image segmentation method; (23) normalizing sizes of images in the foreground silhouette image sequence and using the normalized foreground silhouette image sequence as the initial gait feature. (24) Preferably, the number of the sample pairs comprised in the first sample pair group is equal to that of the sample pairs comprised in the second sample pair group.); and deciding identity of persons detected in images different from each other by using the detected pose of the person (see col. 5, lines 40-67; obtaining a corresponding optimized gait feature according to a trained sub neural network and the initial gait feature extracted in step S11. (13) In this step, the initial gait feature extracted in step S11 is input into a sub neural network, the output of which is a corresponding optimized gait feature. A forward propagation algorithm is used by the sub neural network to extract the optimized gait feature. (14) S13: determining corresponding degrees of similarity according to the optimized gait feature of the person to be recognized and the optimized gait feature of each known person in a matching library, and determining information of the person to be recognized according to information of the known person in the matching library corresponding to the optimized gait feature which has the highest degree of similarity with the optimized gait feature of the person to be recognized. (15) In this embodiment, the k-Nearest Neighbor algorithm can be used to calculate the degree of similarity between the optimized gait feature of the person to be recognized and the optimized gait feature of each known person in the matching library. The information of the person to be recognized can by determined according to the information of the known person in the matching library corresponding to the optimized gait features which has the highest degree of similarity with the optimized gait feature of the person to be recognized. Here, the information of this known person comprises one or more of the information such as name, gender, age, company and the like). Ma does not teach expressly generating a flow line of each person included in the plurality of images by connecting image regions of persons of the same identity, and coupling disconnected flow lines when a disconnected flow line is included in the generated flow line for persons of the same identity.
Ben Shitrit, in the same field of endeavor, teaches generating a flow line of each person included in the plurality of images (see section 3.1, 2) by connecting image regions of persons of the same identity (see pg. 7, pg. 22, pg. 13), and coupling disconnected flow lines (see pg. 2, pg. 5, 6) when a disconnected flow line is included in the generated flow line for persons of the same identity (see section 3.1, pg. 16, pg. 19).
It would have been obvious (before the effective filing date of the claimed invention) or (at the time the invention was made) to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Ma to utilize the cited limitations as suggested by Ben Shitrit. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to enable tracking multiple people whose paths may intersect over long periods of time while retaining identities and avoiding switching (see section 2). 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 the manner explained above using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a “fundamental” operating principle of Ma, while the teaching of Ben Shitrit continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result. 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 claims 5-6, Ma discloses obtaining an image feature value of a person detected in each of the plurality of images, and decides identity of persons detected in the images different from each other, based on whether a similarity degree between the obtained image feature values is equal to or more than a predetermined reference value, among persons detected in each of the plurality of images (see col. 5, lines 40-col. 6, lines 17);
obtaining, by using the detected pose of the person, a pose feature value of the person, and determination means for deciding identity of persons detected in the images different from each other, based on whether a similarity degree between the obtained pose feature values is equal to or more than a predetermined reference value (see col. 5, lines 40-col. 6, lines 17).
Regarding claim 11, Ma discloses an image analysis method comprising: by a computer (see col. 14, lines 15-22; hardware) to implement the limitations of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1).
Regarding claim 12, Ma discloses a non-transitory storage medium storing a program (see col. 14, lines 15-22; hardware with programs which can be stored in a computer readable storage medium such as ROM/RAM) causing a computer to execute the limitations of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1).
Regarding claims 14-15, Ma with Ben Shitrit teaches all elements as mentioned above in claim 1. Ma with Ben Shitrit does not teach expressly at least a case of persons overlapped each other or a person hiding behind an object; disconnected flow lines are coupled based on a distance between persons of the disconnected flow lines.
Ben Shitrit, in the same field of endeavor, teaches at least a case of persons overlapped each other or a person hiding behind an object (see pg. 3-5, 7); disconnected flow lines are coupled based on a distance between persons of the disconnected flow lines (see pg. 11, 13, 14).
It would have been obvious (before the effective filing date of the claimed invention) or (at the time the invention was made) to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Ma with Ben Shitrit to utilize the cited limitations as suggested by Ben Shitrit. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to enable tracking multiple people whose paths may intersect over long periods of time while retaining identities and avoiding switching (see section 2). 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 the manner explained above using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a “fundamental” operating principle of Ma with Ben Shitrit, while the teaching of Ben Shitrit continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Claims 2-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ma et al (US 9,633,268 B1) with Ben Shitrit et al (WO 2013/072401 A2), and further in view of Fu et al (AAAI: “STA: Spatial-Temporal Attention for Large-Scale Video-Based Person Re-Identification”).
Regarding claims 2-3, Ma with Ben Shitrit teaches all elements as mentioned above in claim 1. Ma with Ben Shitrit does not teach expressly decides identity of persons detected in the images different from each other by using a pose of a person detected in each image captured within a predetermined period of time in time series among the plurality of images; decides identity of persons detected in the images different from each other by using a pose of a person within a predetermined distance among persons detected in each of the plurality of images.
Fu, in the same field of endeavor, teaches decides identity of persons detected in the images different from each other by using a pose of a person detected in each image captured within a predetermined period of time in time series among the plurality of images (see abstract, fig. 1; one target person in both spatial and temporal dimensions, which results in a 2-D attention score matrix via inter-frame regularization to measure the importances of spatial parts across different frames. Thus, a more robust clip-level feature representation can be generated according to a weighted sum operation
guided by the mined 2-D attention score matrix. In this way, the challenging cases for video-based person re-identification such as pose variation and partial occlusion can be well tackled by the STA …. input video tracklet is first reduced to N frames by random sampling); decides identity of persons detected in the images different from each other by using a pose of a person within a predetermined distance among persons detected in each of the plurality of images (see abstract; STA fully exploits those discriminative parts of one target person in both spatial and temporal dimensions, which results
in a 2-D attention score matrix via inter-frame regularization to measure the importances of spatial parts across different frames).
It would have been obvious (before the effective filing date of the claimed invention) or (at the time the invention was made) to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Ma with Ben Shitrit to utilize the cited limitations as suggested by Fu. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to enhance the re-identification of a person by minimizing pose variation and partial occlusion by outperforming the top current systems (see abstract). 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 the manner explained above using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a “fundamental” operating principle of Ma with Ben Shitrit, while the teaching of Fu continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ma et al (US 9,633,268 B1) with Ben Shitrit et al (WO 2013/072401 A2), and further in view of Poongothai et al (BABT: “Global and Local Oriented Gabor Texture Histogram for Person Re-identification”).
Regarding claim 4, Ma with Ben Shitrit teaches all elements as mentioned above in claim 1. Ma with Ben Shitrit does not teach expressly obtaining an orientation of a person detected in each of the plurality of images, and decides identity of persons detected in the images different from each other by using a pose of a person in which a difference in the obtained orientation falls within a predetermined range among persons detected in each of the plurality of images.
Poongothai, in the same field of endeavor, teaches obtaining an orientation of a person detected in each of the plurality of images, and decides identity of persons detected in the images different from each other by using a pose of a person in which a difference in the obtained orientation falls within a predetermined range among persons detected in each of the plurality of images (see pg. 8-9).
It would have been obvious (before the effective filing date of the claimed invention) or (at the time the invention was made) to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Ma with Ben Shitrit to utilize the cited limitations as suggested by Poongothai. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to achieve higher classification accuracy (see abstract). 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 the manner explained above using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a “fundamental” operating principle of Ma with Ben Shitrit, while the teaching of Poongothai continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Claims 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ma et al (US 9,633,268 B1) with Ben Shitrit et al (WO 2013/072401 A2), and further in view of Ahmed et al (CV: “Person Re-identification in Videos by Analyzing Spatio-Temporal Tubes”).
Regarding claims 7-8, Ma with Ben Shitrit teaches all elements as mentioned above in claim 6. Ma with Ben Shitrit does not teach expressly deciding determination means decides that persons detected in the images different from each other are not an identical person when an identical person is present in an overlapping manner in terms of time or different persons are present in an overlapping manner in terms of place in a case where a similarity degree between the obtained pose feature values is equal to or more than a predetermined reference value;
deciding determination means decides that persons detected in the images different from each other are an identical person when an identical person is not present in an overlapping manner in terms of time and different persons are not present in an overlapping manner in terms of place in a case where a similarity degree between the obtained pose feature values is equal to or more than a predetermined reference value.
Ahmed, in the same field of endeavor, teaches deciding determination means decides that persons detected in the images different from each other are not an identical person when an identical person is present in an overlapping manner in terms of time or different persons are present in an overlapping manner in terms of place in a case where a similarity degree between the obtained pose feature values is equal to or more than a predetermined reference value (see section 3);
deciding determination means decides that persons detected in the images different from each other are an identical person when an identical person is not present in an overlapping manner in terms of time and different persons are not present in an overlapping manner in terms of place in a case where a similarity degree between the obtained pose feature values is equal to or more than a predetermined reference value (see section 3).
It would have been obvious (before the effective filing date of the claimed invention) or (at the time the invention was made) to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Ma with Ben Shitrit to utilize the cited limitations as suggested by Ahmed. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to enhance the identification accuracy (see abstract). 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 the manner explained above using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a “fundamental” operating principle of Ma with Ben Shitrit, while the teaching of Ahmed continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ma et al (US 9,633,268 B1) with Ben Shitrit et al (WO 2013/072401 A2), and further in view of Gao et al (Sensor: “Superpixel-Based Temporally Aligned Representation for Video-Based Person Re-Identification”).
Regarding claim 9, Ma with Ben Shitrit teaches all elements as mentioned above in claim 1. Ma with Ben Shitrit does not teach expressly outputting an image in which information for identifying a person detected in each of the plurality of images is associated with the person, based on a result of a decision by the deciding identity of persons.
Gao, in the same field of endeavor, teaches outputting an image in which information for identifying a person detected in each of the plurality of images is associated with the person, based on a result of a decision by the deciding identity of persons (see abstract, intro).
It would have been obvious (before the effective filing date of the claimed invention) or (at the time the invention was made) to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Ma with Ben Shitrit to utilize the cited limitations as suggested by Gao. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to enhance the quality of the video by alleviate undesired effects of the background and use the best walking cycle (see introduction). 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 the manner explained above using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a “fundamental” operating principle of Ma with Ben Shitrit, while the teaching of Gao continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ma et al (US 9,633,268 B1) with Ben Shitrit et al (WO 2013/072401 A2), and further in view of Xiu et al (CV: “Pose Flow: Efficient Online Pose Tracking”).
Regarding claim 13, Ma with Ben Shitrit teaches all elements as mentioned above in claim 1. Ma with Ben Shitrit does not teach expressly obtaining a pose feature value of the person by using the detected pose of the person, and deciding the identity of the persons dividing images of persons included in each of the plurality of images into groups in such a way that images of the persons decided as the identical person belong to the same group, wherein the flow line is generated for the images of persons belonging to the same group.
Xiu, in the same field of endeavor, teaches obtaining a pose feature value of the person by using the detected pose of the person, and deciding the identity of the persons dividing images of persons included in each of the plurality of images into groups in such a way that images of the persons decided as the identical person belong to the same group, wherein the flow line is generated for the images of persons belonging to the same group (see section 3.1, intro, 3, 3.3).
It would have been obvious (before the effective filing date of the claimed invention) or (at the time the invention was made) to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Ma with Ben Shitrit to utilize the cited limitations as suggested by Xiu. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to provide a scalable and efficient top-down pose tracker (see conclusion). 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 the manner explained above using known engineering design, interface and/or programming techniques, without changing a “fundamental” operating principle of Ma with Ben Shitrit, while the teaching of Xiu continues to perform the same function as originally taught prior to being combined, in order to produce the repeatable and predictable result. It is for at least the aforementioned reasons that the examiner has reached a conclusion of obviousness with respect to the claim in question.
Conclusion
Claims 1-9, 11-15 are rejected.
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 EDWARD PARK. The examiner’s contact information is as follows:
Telephone: (571)270-1576 | Fax: 571.270.2576 | Edward.Park@uspto.gov
For email communications, please notate MPEP 502.03, which outlines procedures pertaining to communications via the internet and authorization. A sample authorization form is cited within MPEP 502.03, section II.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Moyer, can be reached on (571) 272-9523. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/EDWARD PARK/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2675
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