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 .
This action is responsive to communication filed on 2/4/2026.
Claims 1, 3-16, 18 are subject to examination. Claims 2, 17 are cancelled.
This amendment and applicant’s arguments have been fully considered and entered by the Examiner.
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) 1,3-16, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wei et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2022/0147433 (hereinafter Wei) in view of Meisser et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 9,798,933 (hereinafter Meisser) further in view of Aminlou et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2019/0349598 (hereinafter Aminlou)
With respect to claim 1, Wei teaches an image processing system for a video conferencing software, comprising: a first image capture device (i.e. first camera), capturing a first original image (Paragraph 140-142) generates a first down-sampled image (i.e. zoom ratio lessening or increasing) according to the first original image (Paragraph 96), and transmits the first down-sampled image to the computing device (Paragraph 140-142) ; a second image capture device (i.e. second camera), capturing a second original image (i.e. second original image) (Paragraph 140-142); and
a computing device (i.e. electronic device which is a phone), communicatively connected to the first image capture device and the second image capture device and generating first information (i.e. zoom ratio/target object which phone automatically recognizes if not, inputted by the user) corresponding to the first original image (i.e. the mobile phone determines the size of cropping region according to a zoom ratio and performs cropping by using center of an original image acquired by the camera as a center of an image after cropping) (Paragraph 26, 92, 109) according to the first down-sampled image, wherein resolution of the first down-sampled image is less than resolution of the first original image (i.e. increasing the zoom ratio in the image which will lowered the resolution from the original image) (Paragraph 96-98), wherein
the first image capture device obtains the first information (Paragraph 25, 92, 96), and crops a first cropped image from the first original image according to a first mapping relationship in the first information (Paragraph 92, 96), wherein the first image capture device (i.e. camera) outputs an output image comprising the first cropped image (i.e. cropped image) and a second cropped image (i.e. second cropped image) corresponding to the second original image to the video conferencing software according to a second mapping relationship in the first information (i.e. based on zoom ratio and center of an image)(Paragraph 92, 96-101, 108-109). Examiner would like to point out that in Paragraph 7 according to the specification of the current application, the computing device generates first information according to first down-sampled image which is resolution in which resolution of the first down-samples image is less than resolution of the first original image, hence, the first information can be interpreted as resolution information which is functionally equivalent to zoom ratio in Wei which because zooming in more can lower the resolution. In Paragraph 18 of the specification of the current application, it states that mapping relationship is generated based on computing device receiving a user instruction. Wei teaches user may manually adjust the zoom ratio of the viewfinder. The manually adjusting the zoom is a user instruction hence manually adjusting is the zoom ratio is the first mapping relationship in the first information which is the zoom ratio.
Although Wei teaches image processing system, but it is not in a video conferencing software realm.
Meisser teaches image processing for a video conferencing software wherein first cropped image and second cropped image are outputted to the second original image to the video conferencing software according to a second mapping relationship in the first information (column 13 lines 24-63)(column 15 lines 12-49). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Meisser’s teaching in Wei’s teaching to come up with having image processing in video conferencing. The motivation for doing so would be to show all users int eh primary video conference stream and with a wide angle camera device the focus is maintained.
As stated above, Although, Wei teaches wherein the first image capture device generates a first down-sampled image (i.e. zoom ratio lessening or increasing) according to the first original image (Paragraph 96), and transmits the first down-sampled image to the computing device, wherein the computing device generates the first information according to the first down-sampled image, wherein resolution of the first down-sampled image is less than resolution of the first original image (i.e. increasing the zoom ratio in the image which will lowered the resolution from the original image) (Paragraph 96-98) but does not explicitly teach the first mapping relationship comprises a first size corresponding to the first down-sampled image, and the first image capture device updates the first size according to a ratio between the resolution of the first original image and the resolution of the first down-sampled image.
Aminlou teaches first mapping relationship comprises a first size corresponding to the first down-sampled image, and the first image capture device updates the first size according to a ratio between the resolution of the first original image (i.e. resolution of the input image) and the resolution of the first down-sampled image (i.e. down sampling ratio may be defined as horizontal or vertical resolution of the down sampled image divided by the respective resolution of the input image for down sampling)(Paragraph 199) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Aminlou’s teaching in Wei and Meisser’s teaching to come up with updating the first size according to a ratio between the resolution of the first original image and resolution of the first down sampled image. The motivation for doing so would be to reduce the sampling rate of a signal thus reducing the image sizes in horizontal or vertical direction for better viewing for the user on the compatible user device.
With respect to claim 3, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the computing device generates second information corresponding to the second original image, and transmits the second information to the second image capture device (Paragraph 91), wherein the second image capture device crops the second cropped image from the second original image according to a third mapping relationship in the second information (Paragraph 92).
With respect to claim 4, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the second image capture device generates a second down-sampled image according to the second original image (Paragraph 96), and transmits the second down-sampled image to the computing device, wherein the computing device generates the second information according to the second down-sampled image, wherein resolution of the second down-sampled image is less than resolution of the second original image (Paragraph 96).
With respect to claim 5, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the second image capture device is communicatively connected to the first image capture device, and transmits the second cropped image to the first image capture device (Paragraph 140-142)
With respect to claim 6, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the second image capture device transmits the second cropped image to the first image capture device through the computing device (Paragraph 98-102)
With respect to claim 7, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the computing device obtains the second original image from the second image capture device (Paragraph 92-93, 96) , generates the second cropped image according to the second original image, and transmits the second cropped image to the first image capture device (Paragraph 92, 96-101, 108-109)
With respect to claim 8, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the second mapping relationship comprises a mapping relationship between the first cropped image and the output image and a mapping relationship between the second cropped image and the output image (Paragraph 92, 96-101, 108-109)
With respect to claim 9, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the computing device executes object detection on the first down-sampled image to generate a first object detection result (Paragraph 86-87, 91), and generates the first information according to the first object detection result (Paragraph 91-92).
With respect to claim 10, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the first object detection result comprises a plurality of bounding boxes (Fig. 4 element 404)(Paragraph 109, 144, 150), wherein the image processing system further comprises: an audio capture device (Paragraph 82), communicatively connected to the computing device, wherein in response to obtaining audio from the audio capture device (Paragraph 82, 89), the computing device selects a first bounding box corresponding to the audio from the bounding boxes, and generates the first information according to the first bounding box (Paragraph 109, 144, 150)
With respect to claim 11, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the computing device obtains the first object detection result corresponding to the first image capture device and a second object detection result corresponding to the second image capture device, wherein the first object detection result comprises a first bounding box (Fig. 4 element 404) corresponding to an object (Paragraph 109, 144, 150), and the second object detection result comprises a second bounding box corresponding to the object (Paragraph 109, 144, 150), wherein in response to a size of the first bounding box being greater than a size of the second bounding box, the computing device selects the first bounding box from the first bounding box and the second bounding box to generate the first information according to the first bounding box (Fig. 4)(Paragraph 109, 144, 150)
With respect to claim 12, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 9, but Wei further teaches wherein the computing device obtains the first object detection result corresponding to the first image capture device and a second object detection result corresponding to the second image capture device, wherein the first object detection result comprises a first bounding box corresponding to an object, and the second object detection result comprises a second bounding box corresponding to the object (Paragraph 109, 144, 150) , wherein the computing device determines a first angle between a facing direction of the object and the first image capture device according to the first bounding box (Paragraph 86, 124, 125), and determines a second angle between the facing direction of the object and the second image capture device according to the second bounding box, wherein in response to the first angle being less than the second angle (Paragraph 124, 125), the computing device selects the first bounding box from the first bounding box and the second bounding box to generate the first information according to the first bounding box (Fig. 4)(Paragraph 109, 144, 150)
With respect to claim 13, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the computing device receives a user instruction, and generates the first mapping relationship according to the user instruction (i.e. The manually adjusting the zoom is a user instruction hence manually adjusting is the zoom ratio is the first mapping relationship in the first information which is the zoom ratio.)(Paragraph 96-98)
With respect to claim 14, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 9, but Wei further teaches wherein the first object detection result comprises a plurality of bounding boxes, wherein the computing device receives a user instruction, and selects a first bounding box from the bounding boxes according to the user instruction to generate the first mapping relationship according to the first bounding box (Paragraph 96-98, 109, 144)
With respect to claim 15, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 9, but Wei further teaches wherein the first object detection result comprises a plurality of bounding boxes, wherein the computing device generates the first mapping relationship according to a number of the bounding boxes (Paragraph 96-98, 109, 144)
With respect to claim 16, Wei, Meisser and Aminlou teaches the image processing system to claim 1, but Wei further teaches wherein the first mapping relationship further comprises a first coordinate corresponding to the first original image, wherein the second mapping relationship comprises a second size and a second coordinate corresponding to the output image (Paragraph 96-98, 109, 144)
With respect to claim 18, Wei teaches an image processing method for a video conferencing software, comprising:
-capturing a first original image by a first image capture device (Paragraph 140-142) and capturing a second original image by a second image capture device (Paragraph 140-142);
-generating a first down-sampled image according to the first image (i.e. zoom ratio lessening or increasing) according to the first original image) (Paragraph 96)
-generating first information corresponding to the first original image according to the first down-sampled image and transmitting the first information to the first image capture device (Paragraph 25, 92, 96) wherein resolution of the first down-sampled image is less than resolution of the first original image (i.e. increasing the zoom ratio in the image which will lowered the resolution from the original image) (Paragraph 96-98); cropping a first cropped image from the first original image according to a first mapping relationship in the first information by the first image capture device (Paragraph 25, 92, 96); and outputting an output image comprising the first cropped image and a second cropped image corresponding to the second original image to the video conferencing software according to a second mapping relationship in the first information by the first image capture device (Paragraph 92, 96-101, 108-109).
Although Wei teaches image processing system, but it is not in a video conferencing software realm.
Meisser teaches image processing for a video conferencing software wherein first cropped image and second cropped image are outputted to the second original image to the video conferencing software according to a second mapping relationship in the first information (column 13 lines 24-63)(column 15 lines 12-49). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Meisser’s teaching in Wei’s teaching to come up with having image processing in video conferencing. The motivation for doing so would be to show all users int eh primary video conference stream and with a wide angle camera device the focus is maintained.
As stated above, Although, Wei teaches wherein the first image capture device generates a first down-sampled image (i.e. zoom ratio lessening or increasing) according to the first original image (Paragraph 96), and transmits the first down-sampled image to the computing device, wherein the computing device generates the first information according to the first down-sampled image, wherein resolution of the first down-sampled image is less than resolution of the first original image (i.e. increasing the zoom ratio in the image which will lowered the resolution from the original image) (Paragraph 96-98) but does not explicitly teach the first mapping relationship comprises a first size corresponding to the first down-sampled image, and the first image capture device updates the first size according to a ratio between the resolution of the first original image and the resolution of the first down-sampled image.
Aminlou teaches first mapping relationship comprises a first size corresponding to the first down-sampled image, and the first image capture device updates the first size according to a ratio between the resolution of the first original image (i.e. resolution of the input image) and the resolution of the first down-sampled image (i.e. down sampling ratio may be defined as horizontal or vertical resolution of the down sampled image divided by the respective resolution of the input image for down sampling)(Paragraph 199) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Aminlou’s teaching in Wei and Meisser’s teaching to come up with updating the first size according to a ratio between the resolution of the first original image and resolution of the first down sampled image. The motivation for doing so would be to reduce the sampling rate of a signal thus reducing the image sizes in horizontal or vertical direction for better viewing for the user on the compatible user device.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to amended claim(s) 1, 18 have been considered but are moot in view of new grounds of rejection.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
A). Wu et al. U.S. Patent # 9,860,391
B). Jiang et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2023/0094025
C). Kang et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2022/0094838
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DHAIRYA A. PATEL
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2453
/DHAIRYA A PATEL/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453