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
Applicant’s amendment filed November 4th 2025 has been entered and made of record. Claims 1, 6, 8 and 9 are amended. Claims 3-5 are cancelled. Claims 1-2 and 6-9 are pending.
Applicant’s remarks in view of the newly presented amendments have been considered but are found to be persuasive, however a new reference is cited to teach the newly added claim amendments. The rejection is necessitated by the amendment and is accordingly made FINAL.
The 101 judicial exception rejection is withdrawn in view of the amendment.
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.
Claims 1-2 and 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of USPNs 2014/0110588 to Ikenoue et al. and 2010/0054550 to Okada, and 2017/0193206 to Vadlamudi.
With regard to claim 1, Ikenoue discloses an image processing device comprising:
a memory configured to store instructions (paragraph [0048]); and
a processor configured to execute the instructions (paragraph [0048]) to:
identify a captured image showing face images of a plurality of persons (Figs. 4 and 5, Multiple faces are identified to perform face authentication with registered user faces);
acquire, from the captured image, a plurality of face images that respectively correspond to the plurality of persons (Figs. 4 and 5, Multiple faces are identified to perform face authentication with registered user faces); and
compare, for each of the plurality of face images, [pixel values of each pixel] between the face image with the generated plurality of registered face images (paragraph [0060], Face authentication section derived degree of match between the extracted faces in the image and the face data of all registered users), and identify, as a matching target to be matched against the face image of the person shown in the captured image, a registered image including a face most similar to a face of the person shown in the captured image (paragraphs [0060]-[0061], The face authentication determines the a match when the matching score is above a threshold and determines the match for the highest/best score).
Ikenoue does not explicitly teach the amended step of:
perform, for each of the plurality of face images, an orientation modification processing for modifying a face orientation of each of a plurality of registered face images to an orientation that matches an orientation of a face of the corresponding face image among the plurality of face images, to generate, for each of the plurality of face images, the plurality of registered face images that have undergone the orientation modification processing;
Okada teaches the fairly common practice of normalizing a facial image in order to perform comparison and matching (See Figs. 4, 23 and 26). Okada teaches that the normalization step rotates the face so that the eyes are level on a horizontal line (paragraphs [0084]-[0085] and [0097]-[0099] which is interpreted as an orientation modification as claimed. Each face that is either compared to registered faces and the registered faces themselves are considered to undergo orientation modification to create a normalized face with eyes on a level horizontal line. Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before time of filing to normalize or perform an orientation modification as taught by Okada in combination with the facial comparison of Ikenoue in order to perform face comparison on faces with the same orientation.
Ikenoue does not explicitly disclose the comparison of faces is a comparison of pixel values of each pixel between the faces.
Vadlamudi disclose a similar authentication of a user through face recognition and further teaches “The comparison may comprise calculating the similarity between the pixel values of the captured image and the pixel values of the stored images corresponding to the same positions in the image frame. Similarity of the images can be determined based on the difference or proximity in values for each compared pixel.” (paragraph [0021]). Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before time of filing to use the pixel comparison taught by Vadlamudi in combination with the facial comparison and authentication of Ikenoue in order to find the best matching face.
With regard to claim 2, Ikenoue discloses the image processing device according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to execute the instructions to identify, as the matching target, a corresponding registered image similar to each face image of the plurality of persons shown in the captured image (paragraphs [0061]-[0063], multiple faces are matched to authorized registered users).
With regard to claim 7, Ikenoue discloses the image processing device according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to execute the instructions to perform processing for matching with the face image included in the captured image by using the face image of the matching target (paragraphs [0061]-[0063], multiple faces are matched to authorized registered users. When the captured face image matches a registered and stored face image, the successful match is considered to be the same face/person).
With regard to claim 8, the discussion of claim 1 applies.
With regard to claim 9, the discussion of claim 1 applies. Ikenoue discloses a computer program (paragraph [0002]).
Claim 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of USPNs 2016/0110588 to Ikenoue et al. and 2010/0054550 to Okada, and 2017/0193206 to Vadlamudi, and 2004/0228505 to Sugimoto
With regard to claim 6, Ikenoue discloses that the size of the faces to be identified are determined (paragraphs [0064] and [0129]). However Ikenoue does not explicitly disclose wherein the processor is configured to execute the instructions to identify a captured image in which face images of the plurality of persons are equal to or larger than a predetermined size in the captured image.
Sugimoto teaches a face extraction and matching process similar to Ikenoue and further teaches determining when the size of the face meets set size thresholds of upper and lower limits (paragraph [0089] and Figs. 2, 6 and 9).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before time of filing to set a lower limit threshold for face size as taught by Sugimoto in combination with the face detection of Ikenoue in order to only process faces of substantial size and to ignore faces that are small that may be far away or not relevant to the face recognition processing.
FINAL REJECTION
Applicant’s amendment necessitated the new grounds of rejection presented in the 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 37CFR 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WESLEY J TUCKER whose telephone number is (571)272-7427. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM Monday-Friday.
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/WESLEY J TUCKER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2661