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 .
Claim Status
Claims 1-19 were pending for examination in Application No. 18/293,468, filed January 30th, 2024. In the remarks and amendments filed April 21st, 2026, claims 1 and 13 are amended, claims 2 and 14 are cancelled, and no claims are added. Accordingly, claims 1, 3-13, and 15-19 are currently pending for examination in the application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed April 21st, 2026, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The examiner respectfully disagrees with applicant’s assertion that Wang’s “local weighting factor” is not the same as applicant’s “predetermined first number of PQ luminance steps” (pg. 8 of Applicant’s Remarks). Wang’s “local weighting factor” can be understood as a calibration factor for the watermark signal, in that it “attenuates a strength of the periodic watermark signal in proportion to a pixel luminance level” (Wang, Para [0006]). The local weighting factor implements a “Just Noticeable Difference”, or JND (not in the specification of Wang, but understood by one of ordinary skill in the art), that prevents the watermark from being perceived by a human visual system, as the noise reduction it does on the image to which the watermark is being embedded is weighted proportionally to the EOTF (electro-optical transfer function) function that was applied to the image (Wang, Para [0023]). Further, although Perez-Daniel is not relied upon to teach the specific claim limitation of “predetermined first number of PQ luminance steps”, it can be understood that would be reasonable for Perez-Daniel’s method of watermarking to implicitly teach this. Fig. 7 of Perez-Daniel shows the LVT curve (which is used to embed the watermark, as in Fig. 13 of Perez-Daniel) of a PQ transfer function, whose steps allow for a watermark embedded by the LVT curve to be imperceptible by a human eye. However, Wang more explicitly resolves this deficiency.
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Further, applicant asserts that Wang’s “a strength of the periodic watermark signal in proportion to a pixel luminance level” is not the same as applicant’s “proportional to the PQ luminance level encoding transfer function over the luminance range” (pg. 8 of Applicant’s Remarks). The examiner asserts that Perez-Daniel teaches this and not Wang (see Non-Final Rejection, dated 1/29/26, pg. 5). Perez-Daniel’s LVT curve is based on the PQ and HLG transfer functions, as shown in Fig. 7 (though both transfer functions have separate HVT curves and are not related). The LVT curve is then used to embed a watermark into an image (Fig. 13).
Therefore, the rejection of claim 1 of Perez-Daniel in view of Wang and Tehranchi is maintained.
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, 3-4, 8-9, 12-13, 15, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Perez-Daniel et al., "Watermarking of HDR Images in the Spatial Domain With HVS-Imperceptibility," in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 156801-156817, 2020, and further in view of Wang et al. (US-20160364826-A1) and Tehranchi et al. (US-20020168069-A1).
Regarding claim 1, Perez-Daniel teaches a digital watermarking method, comprising:
receiving, by an electronic processor, an original video signal containing a series of original visual images (“These HDR images are frames from a large collection of real-life HDR video sequences captured in a wide variety of scenarios and lighting conditions” page 156808, Section V), the original video signal encoded using a perceptual quantizer (PQ) luminance level encoding transfer function resulting in PQ luminance steps (“PQ EOTF”) within the original video signal (“Each HDR image has a resolution of 1920 × 1080 and is coded using Rec.2020 + PQ EOTF−1” pg. 156808, Section V), the PQ luminance steps having varying sizes across a luminance range (Fig. 7, , the LVT curve represents the visibility of changes in brightness according to a nit value, and the less luminance there is, the more steps/levels there are);
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receiving, by the electronic processor, a watermark image signal including a watermark (“The HDR-IW method embeds a binary watermark, BW, of size m × n into the ER,” pg. 156806, section C);
and adjusting the strength of the watermark by adjusting the amplitude of the watermark image signal by at least a first weighting factor (“The embedding factor of the cover image… is then computed as a weighted sum of the average luma variation threshold of the ER,”, pg. 156806, section C, and Eq. 6, where ΞHDR is the embedding factor of the cover image)
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to cause the strength of the watermark to be proportional to the PQ luminance level transfer function over the luminance range (Perez-Daniel, Fig. 13, pg. 156808,” computation of embedding factor, Xi[HDR], of cover image based on LVT curve”, which is then embedded into the watermark).
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such that the watermark signal is not visible to the human eye (“we propose a watermarking method in the spatial domain with HVS-imperceptibility capabilities,” Pg. 156802)
Perez-Daniel fails to teach the following limitations as further claimed. However, Wang further teaches adjusting the amplitude of the watermark image signal by at least a first weighting factor (“local weighting factor”) that is a predetermined first number of PQ luminance steps (“generating a mixed signal by mixing the extracted signal with a periodic watermark signal using a local weighing factor for the periodic watermark signal that attenuates a strength of the periodic watermark signal in proportion to a pixel luminance level,” Para [0006]), and Tehranchi further teaches that the watermark signal is not visible to the human eye but is recoverable by an image capturing device (“a copy-deterrent pattern that is imperceptible to a human observer, but that is clearly perceptible when captured using a video camera or related image capture device,” Para [0054]).
Wang is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the field of imperceptible digital watermarking that can be used on HDR videos or images. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Wang into Perez-Daniel for the benefit of a watermark that is imperceptible to humans no matter the brightness of the image or video.
Tehranchi is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the field of imperceptible digital watermarking of images or videos. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Tehranchi into Perez-Daniel for the benefit of a watermark that is only perceptible to unauthorized users of the media content.
Regarding claim 3, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Perez-Daniel in view of Wang and Tehranchi teach the method of claim 1, and Perez-Daniel further teaches where the luminance range spans from at least 0.001 nits to 1000 nits (Fig. 7, pg. 156805, x-axis is 0 to 1000 nits (cd/m^2)).
Regarding claim 4, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Perez-Daniel in view of Wang and Tehranchi teach the method of claim 1, and Perez-Daniel further teaches wherein the first weighting factor (Fig. 13, “embedding factor… of cover image based on LVT curve”) is the predetermined first number of PQ luminance steps (Fig. 7, ξ(Ld)) over a luminance range of at least 0.01 nits to 50 nits (Fig. 7, LVT curve for PQ EOTF).
Regarding claim 8, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Perez-Daniel in view of Wang and Tehranchi teach the method of claim 1, and Wang further teaches embedding the adjusted watermark signal into the original video signal to create an embedded video signal (“In accordance with at least one embodiment, operations may be selectively applied on either I frames or subsequent P frames of a streaming video,” Para [0016]), the embedded video signal including a series of marked visual images (“methods and devices for digitally watermarking content may watermark content by use of one or more operations where a first periodic watermark signal is used to mark an original image,” Para [0013]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Wang into Perez-Daniel for the benefit of increased robustness of the watermark in movie content.
Regarding claim 9, the rejection of claim 8 is incorporated herein. Perez-Daniel in view of Wang and Tehranchi teach the method of claim 8, and Wang further teaches transmitting the embedded image signal to a playback device (“described technology may be employed in a variety of special purpose devices such as… theatrical playback devices,” Para [0065]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Wang into Perez-Daniel for the benefit of increased copyright protections in movie theatres.
Claims 12-13, 15, and 19 are non-transitory computer-readable storage medium or system claims that correspond to method claims 1, 3, and 8-9. Therefore, the rejections of claims 1, 3, and 8-9 apply to 12-13, 15, and 19.
Claim(s) 5 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Perez-Daniel et al., "Watermarking of HDR Images in the Spatial Domain With HVS-Imperceptibility," in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 156801-156817, 2020, in view of Wang et al. (US-20160364826-A1) and Tehranchi et al. (US-20020168069-A1), and further in view of Seong et al. (US-20050265576-A1).
Regarding claim 5, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Perez-Daniel in view of Wang and Tehranchi teach the method of claim 1, but fail to teach the following limitations as further claimed. Seong, however, further teaches wherein the first weighting factor comprises a static force weighting factor (“when the frame is not the inter-frame, a watermark is inserted with a watermark embedding strength determined using the first coefficient,” Para [0070]; in other words, if the frames are of the same scene, they are static and the first coefficient is applied), the method further comprising adjusting the strength of the watermark by a second weighting factor, the second weighting factor comprising a motion force weighting factor (“When a frame is determined as being the inter-frame, a second coefficient is determined using a motion vector size in operation S450. When the frame is the inter-frame, a watermark is inserted with a watermark embedding strength determined using the first and second coefficients,” Para [0070]).
Seong is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of embedding watermarks into videos. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Seong into Perez-Daniel for the benefit of a robust watermark regardless of the scenes in the movie or video.
Claim 16 is a system claim that corresponds to method claim 5. Therefore, the rejection of claim 5 applies to claim 16.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Perez-Daniel et al., "Watermarking of HDR Images in the Spatial Domain With HVS-Imperceptibility," in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 156801-156817, 2020, in view of Wang et al. (US-20160364826-A1) and Tehranchi et al. (US-20020168069-A1), and further in view of Petrovic et al. (US-20060005029 -A1).
Regarding claim 10, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Perez-Daniel in view of Wang and Tehranchi teach the method of claim 1, but fail to teach the following limitations as further claimed. Petrovic, however, further teaches transmitting the adjusted watermark signal onto a screen (“the generated watermark signals may be projected separately onto the movie screen so that their superposition with the original content would produce a watermarked content,” Para [0193]).
Petrovic is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the field of digital watermarking systems. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Petrovic into Perez-Daniel for the benefit of reduced bandwidth for the embedding and transmission systems.
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Perez-Daniel et al., "Watermarking of HDR Images in the Spatial Domain With HVS-Imperceptibility," in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 156801-156817, 2020, in view of Wang et al. (US-20160364826-A1) and Tehranchi et al. (US-20020168069-A1), and further in view of Witt (US-20170345118-A1).
Regarding claim 11, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Perez-Daniel in view of Wang and Tehranchi teach the method of claim 1, but fail to teach the following limitations as further claimed. Witt, however, further teaches modulating the adjusted watermark image by repeatedly changing the polarity of the adjusted watermark image (“multiple watermark basis functions can be utilized and the polarity of the watermark can be changed every video frame,” Para [0023] and Fig. 3, an example of the watermarks).
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Witt is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the field of imperceptible digital watermarking. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Witt into Perez-Daniel for the benefit of a more robust watermark that is less at risk of an attack or removal.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-7 and 17-18 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. It is suggested that the allowable dependent claims are moved to the independent claim as limitations. The claims are potentially allowable on account of the prior art failing to anticipate or render obvious the limitations of the allowable subject matter. The primary reason of allowance for claim 6 is the implementation of “wherein the second weighting factor is proportional to a second number of PQ luminance steps” in view of the teachings of claims 1 and 5. Claim 7 depends on claim 6 and is allowable based on its dependency to claim 6. Claim 18 is a corresponding claim to claim 7 and is thus also allowable.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Reed et al. (US-20050157907-A1) teaches a system for determining visibility of a watermark embedded in an image or video.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 RACHEL A OMETZ whose telephone number is (571)272-2535. The examiner can normally be reached 6:45am-4:00pm ET Monday-Thursday, 6:45am-1:00pm ET every other Friday.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vu Le can be reached at 571-272-7332. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Rachel Anne Ometz/ Examiner, Art Unit 2668 5/5/25
Rachel.ometz@uspto.gov
/VU LE/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2668
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