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 .
Response to Amendment
This office action is in response to amendment/reconsideration filed on 9/15/2025, the amendment/reconsideration has been considered. Claims 1, 8 and 9 have been amended. Claims 1-18 are pending for examination as cited below.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the amended claim(s) have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection necessitated by claim amendments.
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.
Claim(s) 1-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura et al. (Pub. No.: US 2023/0222195 A1), hereinafter “Naka” in view of Tseng et al. (Pub. No.: US 2020/0364479 A1), hereinafter “Tseng” and further in view of Monroe et al. (Pub. No.: US 2010/0111377 A1), hereinafter “Mon”.
As to claim 1. Naka discloses, a face authentication system (Naka, fig.1, [0079]) comprising:
a first authentication apparatus that executes authentication of a person captured in an input image by comparing face feature information of the person being acquired from the input image, with registered face feature information in a first watchlist (Naka, [0085], [0086], a face authentication process is performed, the face matching server 6 acquires face image data of a person to be verified from a face authentication machine(s) 1, generates face feature amount data of the person to be verified, and performs a face matching operation by comparing the face feature amount data of the person to be verified with face feature amount data of registrants (registered users) in the face matching server 6 for matching to determine whether or not the person to be verified is a registrant.);
a second authentication apparatus that executes authentication of a person unauthenticated with the first watchlist by comparing face feature information of the face feature information for which matching registered face feature information does not exist in the first watchlist, with registered face feature information in a second watchlist (Naka, [0091], matching groups are assigned to respective groups of face authentication machines 1 formed by grouping authentication machines 1 based on the locations of the face authentication machines 1 in the same manner as the user groups. Furthermore, matching groups are assigned to corresponding face matching servers 6; that is, matching groups are assigned to groups of face matching servers 6, to which face authentication machines 1 make inquiries (requests) for face authentication, formed by grouping the face matching servers 6 in the same manner as the groups of face authentication machines 1.).
Naka however is silent to disclose explicitly, a host server that registered face feature information from one of the first watchlist and the second watchlist to the other of the first watchlist and the second watchlist, based on at least one of a priority degree for each piece of registered face feature information in the first watchlist and a priority degree for each piece of registered face feature information in the second watchlist.
Tseng discloses a similar concept in the same field of endeavor including, a host server that updates registered face feature information in the first watchlist and registered face feature information in the second watchlist, based on at least one of a priority degree for each piece of registered face feature information in the first watchlist and a priority degree for each piece of registered face feature information in the second watchlist (Tseng, [0010], comparing the captured facial feature with the registered facial feature to obtain a first similarity; determining whether the first similarity is greater than or equal to a feature threshold; if the first similarity is less than the feature threshold, it is identified as an unregistered person; if the first similarity is greater than or equal to the feature threshold, comparing the captured facial feature and a false-positive facial image feature to obtain a second similarity; determining whether the second similarity is less than the false-positive threshold; and if the second similarity is less than the false-positive threshold, identifying the captured image as a registered person.).
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the instant application it would have been obvious to one of the skilled in the art to incorporate the teachings of Tseng into those of Naka to provide a face recognition system that includes an image obtaining device, a facial analysis module, and a feature comparison module. The image obtaining device is used to obtain a registered facial image. The facial analysis module is used to analyze the registered facial image to obtain a registered facial feature, so as to determine a feature threshold of the registered facial feature. The feature comparison module is used to compare the registered facial feature with a facial feature of a plural facial images to register a facial feature of a similar facial image corresponding to more than a similarity threshold as a false-positive facial image feature. Such that the facial analysis module determines a false-positive threshold of the false-positive facial image feature.
Naka and Tseng are silent to disclose, server that transfers at least one piece of information from one watchlist to another watchlist.
Mon discloses a similar concept in the same field of endeavor, server that transfers at least one piece of information from one watchlist to another watchlist (Mon, fig.10, [0272], the passenger's ticket and photo ID (driver's license, passport, or the like) are scanned by networked scanner 102, and the resulting images are transferred, via the airport LAN, to the networked Image Database.).
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the instant application it would have been obvious to one of the skilled in the art to incorporate the teachings of “Mon” into those of “Naka and Tseng” to provide a surveillance system having at least one camera adapted to produce an IP signal, the at least one camera having an image collection device configured for collecting image data, the at least one camera having at least one facial processor configured to execute with digital format image data at least one facial recognition algorithm, execution of the at least one facial recognition algorithm with the digital format image data detecting faces when present in the digital format image data, execution of the at least one facial recognition algorithm providing for each detected face at least one set of unique facial image data.
As to claim 2. The combined system of Naka, Tseng and Mon discloses the invention as in parent claim above including, wherein the host server updates registered face feature information in the first watchlist and registered face feature information in the second watchlist, based on a priority degree for each piece of registered face feature information in the first watchlist and a priority degree for each piece of registered face feature information in the second watchlist (Tseng, [0010] the similarity have been ranked and process use them in order).
As to claim 3. The combined system of Naka, Tseng and Mon discloses the invention as in parent claim above including, wherein the first authentication apparatus detects a face region of a person from the input image, and generates the face feature information for each of the face regions being detected (Naka, [0118]).
As to claim 4. The combined system of Naka, Tseng and Mon discloses the invention as in parent claim above including, wherein, when a plurality of the first authentication apparatuses exist, each of a plurality of the first authentication apparatuses is associated with attribute information indicating an associated attribute, and the host server acquires update target information indicating an attribute of the first authentication apparatus being an update target, determines the first authentication apparatus in association with attribute information associated with an attribute indicated by the update target information, and identifies, as an update target, the first watchlist used in the first authentication apparatus being determined (Naka, fig. 3a-3c, [0097-0100], fig.3a-c displays various matching groups communicating with face matching servers which are updated periodically or as the new user or tenant register into the face authentication system).
As to claim 5. The combined system of Naka, Tseng and Mon discloses the invention as in parent claim above including, wherein person attribute information indicating an attribute of a corresponding person is associated with each piece of registered face feature information in the first watchlist and the second watchlist, and the host server acquires authentication attribute specification information indicating an attribute of a person subjected to authentication, and changes a priority degree of each piece of registered face feature information, based on an attribute indicated by the authentication attribute specification information and the person attribute information in each piece of registered face feature information (Tseng, [0019-0020], that if the number of facial images established by the first database 51 and the second database 52 is not enough, the first database 51 and the second database 52 can also be integrated into a single database. The feature comparison module 30 compares the registered facial feature with the facial feature of the facial images stored in the first database 51 to confirm whether it exceeds a similarity threshold. The feature comparison module 30 performs comparisons by using a technique such as cosine similarity or Euclidean distance, but the present invention is not limited thereto. The similarity threshold is generally used to identify the similarity threshold value, which is also a threshold value that is repeatedly tested to find the highest accuracy rate, e.g. it can be 0.6, but the present invention is not limited to the value.).
As to claim 6. The combined system of Naka, Tseng and Mon discloses the invention as in parent claim above including, wherein the host server updates a priority degree of the registered face feature information in each of the first watchlist and the second watchlist, based on an actual comparison result of each piece of the registered face feature information (Naka, [0156]).
As to claim 7. The combined system of Naka, Tseng and Mon discloses the invention as in parent claim above including, wherein the first watchlist includes a buffer region in which registered face feature information transferred from the second watchlist is stored temporarily (Naka, [0003]. Additionally, the limitation is an intended use and known in the art).
As to claim 8. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 1 above.
As to claim 9. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 1 and 2 above.
As to claims 10 and 15. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 2 above.
As to claim 11. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 3 above.
As to claim 12. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 4 above.
As to claim 13. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 5 above.
As to claim 14. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 6 above.
As to claim 16. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 4 above.
As to claim 17. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 4, and13 above.
As to claim 18. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 6 above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please see the attached PTO-892.
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.
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/Tauqir Hussain/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2446
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