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 communication is in response to the RCE filed on 10/03/2025. Claims 17-22 are currently pending in the application. It is noted that claims 21-22 are newly added claims.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114, Applicant’s submission filed on 10/03/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 10/03/2025 regarding the previous 103 rejections of the application have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argued against using four references in the prosecution of the present application without pointing out specific limitations that were not taught by those references. The examiner would like to affirm that the use of five or more references to prosecute an application is not alien to the practice at USPTO provided the references are congruous with each other and disclose the limitations of the claimed invention which is the case in this situation. Each of the references applied in the prosecution of the present application is analogous to capturing, classification, analysis, and or scoring of streams of video or images.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 17 -19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USPGPub. No. 20110047388 to PARK et al (hereinafter PARK) in view of USPGPub. No. 20020147782 to Dimitrova et al. (hereinafter Dimitrova) and further in view of USPGPub. No. 20040006767 to Robson et al. (hereinafter Robson)
Regarding claim 17, Park discloses a system for monitoring (¶0036, “...performing real-time remote monitoring…”), obscuring and recovering images available for viewing by a selected user (¶0043, “…encrypting or inactivating the content of the image when it is determined that the content of the image is pornographic (330); extracting at least one representative problematic image frame from the content of the image and transmitting the at least one representative problematic image frame to a parent-controlled device (340);…”), the system comprising:
a computing device having an obscuring and analysis system (OAAS) (¶0053, FIG. 5, “apparatus 500”) which uses an algorithm installed thereon, the computing device having at least one image input device configured to continuously receive a plurality of image types from a plurality of sources (¶0054, FIG. 5, “image content acquiring unit 510”), (¶0036, “…performing real-time remote monitoring…”), see also ¶0029, ¶0039, ¶0043, and ¶0050, for real time (continuous) monitoring, (¶0034, “…the first device may be any of a TV, a PC, a portable media player (PMP), (plurality of sources) etc. …”), (¶0060, “a child's playback and distribution of pornography are initially prevented by automatically detecting pornography when a child has captured or acquired pornography via a mobile device, thereby reducing problems due to pornographic UCC, such as pornographic still images and moving images (image types), which numbers thereof have been rapidly increased recently.”) and one image output device configured to output the received plurality of image types from the plurality of sources to be viewed by the user (¶0054, FIG. 5, the output of the second device, wherein the second device is a parent-controlled device that has authority to control the first device, see ¶0034,), (¶0030, “There may be a variety of algorithms for determining whether content of an image is pornographic…”), (¶0036, “an algorithm is performed for a predetermined amount of time for determining whether image frames of the content of the image are pornographic,..”);
an image classifier installed on the computing device configured to classify received images from the plurality of image types from the plurality of sources as one of clean and non-clean (¶0054, FIG. 5, “…a pornography determining unit 520…”);
wherein the controlled images contain content which enables the OAAS to execute at least one of: recovery of the received input images; and transmission of metadata associated with the received images to a reporting agent (¶0057, “…The pornography inquiry unit 570 allows a user having authority to retrieve the stored representative problematic image frame to inquire about the representative problematic image frame. According to the exemplary embodiment, if it is determined that the content of the image is pornographic, the representative problematic image frame from the content of the image is transmitted to a parent-controlled mobile device…”).
However, PARK does not explicitly disclose the following limitation:
a MLIC algorithm installed thereon,
wherein the OAAS is configured to generate one or more controlled images and to cause at least one of the received images classified by the image classifier to be non-clean to be obscured by the one or more controlled images, the controlled images being displayed for viewing by the user via the image output device while at least one of the input images classified by the image classifier to be non-clean is not visible to the user via said image output device;
wherein when the received images is greater than two images from the plurality of sources, these greater than two received images are scored separately, and the presence of multiple restricted subject images will result in a determination of high confidence that at least one of the plurality of sources is to be obscured and reported upon;
wherein when an image classifier classifies received images as non-clean, future actions include the OAAS obscuring a predetermined number of next images; and obscuring the next images for a predetermined time.
Dimitrova in the same field of endeavor discloses:
a MLIC algorithm installed thereon, (¶0046-¶0047, “The learning module 180 preferably employs standard and well-understood learning paradigms to achieve the proper correlation between the labeling of the video input scene and the extracted features. Standard learning paradigms such as Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), Bayesian networks, genetic algorithms, and neural networks advantageously can be employed in the parental control system and corresponding method, combined with nearest neighbor classification,…”),
wherein the OAAS is configured to generate one or more controlled images and to cause at least one of the received images classified by the image classifier to be non-clean to be obscured by the one or more controlled images, the controlled images being displayed for viewing by the user via the image output device while at least one of the input images classified by the image classifier to be non-clean is not visible to the user via said image output device (¶0016, “The present invention provides an automatic system to evaluate video programs using criteria supplied by a user (a parent, for example) via the multimedia content, e.g. visual, audio, and textual content, of video programs and which then filters, blocks, or masks portions of the video programs according to those criteria, in real time. Such blocking or masking may include simply skipping over the material determined to meet the user specified criteria, substituting an alternate "safe" signal for the duration of the offending program segment, or masking portions of the video or audio content, e.g. blurring a naked body or garbling profanity.”), (¶0020, “…The filter either modifies one of the first and second audible features of the respective segment, or modifies the video feature of the respective segment, or eliminates the respective segment from the filtered multimedia program output by the parental control system…”), (¶0055, …“the filter module 290 advantageously can be configured to substitute another video signal for that segment (e.g., show a Barney the dinosaur interstitial or Web page). Moreover, assuming that the filter module 290 receives definitive information as to what part of a multimedia segment is to be removed, the filter module 290 advantageously can mask or blur out that particular portion…”);
wherein when the received images is greater than two images from the plurality of sources, these greater than two received images are scored separately, and the presence of multiple restricted subject images will result in a determination of high confidence that at least one of the plurality of sources is to be obscured and reported upon (¶0018-¶0020, “the present invention provides a method for dynamically filtering the content of a multimedia program in real time on a segment-by-segment basis responsive to a filter criteria, comprising extracting audio, video, and transcript features from segments including the multimedia program, generating a numeric ranking for each filter criteria for each applicable filter category (e.g. violence, nudity, religion, etc.) each of the segments, and when the combined respective numeric rankings for that segment exceeds a threshold, processing that segment to thereby eliminate material corresponding to the filter criteria…”), (¶0057, “the parental control system advantageously can receive feedback from the controlling user. That is, after the parental control system segments and classifies the movie, the user can be given a chance to review the marked segments and provide feedback to the system, identifying which segments are correctly marked or classified and which are marked incorrectly. It will be appreciated that the next time that the system goes through the learning and classification phases, the system will produce better results.”);
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the system of PARK to include generation of modified (control) images to obscure inappropriate images as disclosed by Dimitrova and be motivated in doing so in order to provide additional layer of restriction to inappropriate content access.
The combination of PARK and Dimitrova does not disclose the following limitations:
wherein when an image classifier classifies received images as non-clean, future actions include the OAAS obscuring a predetermined number of next images; and obscuring the next images for a predetermined time.
Robson in the same field of endeavor discloses wherein when an image classifier classifies received images as non-clean, future actions include the OAAS obscuring a predetermined number of next images (¶0082-¶0083, “The DURATION attribute, which is required for all codes, specifies the number of frames (or alternately, thirtieths of a second) the program is to be filtered from the reception of the START attribute (discussed below). In the case of A-codes, it specifies how long the audio will be filtered (e.g., muted). For V-codes and S-codes, the DURATION attribute specifies how long a portion of the screen will be blanked.”); and
obscuring the next images for a predetermined time (¶0098, “Filtering will begin in the frame containing the closing bracket of the START attribute and will continue for the number of frames specified by the DURATION attribute. However, in alternate embodiments the START attribute could identify an absolute start time, a relative start time, or a start location within the signal or recording.”), (¶0022, “…If filtering of the video is to be performed, the processor causes a video filter to cover over a specified area of the video display at a specified frame for a specified duration to thereby filter the objectionable portion of the video of the program.”). See also ¶0183.
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the system of PARK and Dimitrova to include blocking/filtering the inappropriate/objectionable images for a predetermined time as disclosed by Robson and be motivated in doing so in order to provide for the selective filtering of objectionable content from a program-Robson abstract in parts
Regarding claim 18, Park in view of Dimitrova and further in view of Robson discloses the system of claim 17.
Dimitrova further discloses wherein said computing device is configured such that the OAAS is included in at least one of: the operating system of the computing device; and a chip embedded in the computing device (¶0007, “… televisions currently being produced include technology known as the "V-Chip ", which uses rating information inserted in the broadcast television video programs to determine, based on user supplied information, whether the program is viewable or not....”), (¶0035, “…Such information would complement or even supplement any rating information, which might be available via the XDS information located on line 21 of the VBI, as used by V-chip technology.”). Robson also discloses V-chip and operating system in ¶0008, ¶0009, ¶0178, ¶0219.
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the system of PARK, Dimitrova, and Robson in claim 17 include a V-chip embedded in a computing device as disclosed by Dimitrova and be motivated in doing so in order to empower the parents to control the children’s TV viewing by blocking any deemed inappropriate contents.
Regarding claim 19, Park in view of Dimitrova and further in view of Robson discloses the system of claim 17.
PARK further discloses wherein the OAAS is configured to permit some of the received images to not be obscured by the controlled images, based on at least one of:
a classification of the receive images by the image classifier; a predetermined schedule based on time; and a predetermined schedule based on number of received images (¶0044, “… Access to the content of the image may be controlled according to a controlling degree of entire allowance, partial allowance or entire disallowance when the contents of the image are used. In addition, the access to the content of the image may be controlled based on a point of time when the content of the image is capable of being used, a length and duration of the content of the image, an amount of the content of the image, image quality or a sound quality of the content of the image, and a medium for transmitting the content of the image.”), (¶0040, “… If the parent determines that the representative problematic image frame is not problematic, control commands allowing the child to access the content of the image are transmitted to the child's mobile device (250)…”)
Regarding claim 21, Park in view of Dimitrova and further in view of Robson discloses the system of claim 17.
Park further discloses wherein the received images are at least one of still pictures, videos, streaming videos, 3-D images, holographic, virtual reality, and analog images (¶0025, “since most small-sized portable devices include a digital camera or a camcorder module for capturing a high-definition moving image as well as a still image (e.g., a photograph)…”), (¶0028, “In Operation 110, the content of the image is acquired. For example, a user photographs himself or herself using the first device, for example, a mobile phone including a camera. The first device for acquiring the content of the image may be any image-related consumer electronic (CE) product for capturing a still image or a moving image, such as a digital camera, a mobile phone, a camcorder, a netbook computer or a portable media player (PMP)…”).
Claim 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US.PGPub. No. 20110047388 to PARK et al (hereinafter PARK) in view of US.PGPub. No. 20020147782 to Dimitrova et al. (hereinafter Dimitrova) and further in view of US.PGPub. No. 20040006767 to Robson et al. (hereinafter Robson) and further in view of US.PGPub. No. 20110221919 to ZHANG; Wembo (hereinafter ZHANG).
Regarding claim 22, Park in view of Dimitrova and further in view of Robson discloses the system of claim 21.
Dimitrova further discloses wherein the score for the video images determined by the programmable processor of the control circuit of the computing device is based on images or portions of video images preceding captured of the sequential images (¶0018-¶0020, “…the present invention provides a method for dynamically filtering the content of a multimedia program in real time on a segment-by-segment basis responsive to a filter criteria, comprising extracting audio, video, and transcript features from segments including the multimedia program, generating a numeric ranking for each filter criteria for each applicable filter category (e.g. violence, nudity, religion, etc.) each of the segments, and when the combined respective numeric rankings for that segment exceeds a threshold, processing that segment to thereby eliminate material corresponding to the filter criteria…”).
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the system of PARK, Dimitrova, and Robson to include generation of score (numeric ranking) based on video images as disclosed by Dimitrova and be motivated in doing so in order to generate a control signal when the combined numeric ranking exceeds a threshold-Dimitrova ¶0020 in parts.
However, the combination of Park, Dimitrova, and Robson does not explicitly disclose the following limitation:
wherein the received images are video images and wherein a programmable processor of a control circuit of the computing device is programmed to determine a score of the video images via a capture of sequential images of the video at predetermined time intervals in the range of 1 milliseconds to 10,000 milliseconds; and
ZHANG discloses the limitation (¶0051, “…After the average values of the degree-of-saturation values of the pixels whose brightness values are within the above-mentioned two ranges, in each of the foreground images are calculated, the threshold value estimation unit 402 further calculates average values of the degree-of-saturation values of the pixels whose brightness values are within the above-mentioned two ranges, in all the foreground images during a predetermined time period (for example, 10 seconds (10,000 milliseconds))…”).
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of the applicant’s claimed invention to modify the system of PARK, Dimitrova, and Robson in claim 21 to include calculation of image scores at a predetermined time interval of 0-10 seconds as disclosed by ZHANG and be motivated in doing so because it provides a utilization capable of setting a specific threshold value range for the determination of score or ranking value for captured sequential images.
Claim 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USPGPub. No. 20110047388 to PARK et al (hereinafter PARK) in view of US.PGPub. No. 20020147782 to Dimitrova et al. (hereinafter Dimitrova) and further in view of US.PGPub. No. 20040006767 to Robson et al. (hereinafter Robson) in view of USPGPub. No. 20090128573 to Lambe et al (hereinafter Lambe) and further in view of US. PAT. NO 10242589 to Yamanashi et al. (hereinafter Yamanashi).
Regarding claim 20, Park in view of Dimitrova and further in view of Robson discloses the system of claim 17.
PARK further discloses the limitation of:
wherein future actions further include the OAAS causing at least one of:
turning the computing device off;
sounding an alarm; obscuring the next image;
allowing the unobscured display of next image;
allowing a predetermined number of next images;
allowing the next images for a predetermined time; and
sending content about analyzed images to a reporting agent (¶0049-¶0050, “once it is determined that pornography has been acquired by a child's device, but before problematic images are transmitted to a parental mobile device, a warning message is displayed on a monitor of the child's device…”, wherein a warning message is interpreted as an alarm and the parent to which the problematic images are transmitted being the reporting agent);
wherein the reporting agent generates a report on the image and wherein the report includes at least one of: metadata about the image; the input image; the controlled image; and results of analysis by OAAS (¶0039-¶0041, FIG. 2, “Referring to FIG. 2, when the child captures content of an image that is suspected to be pornographic by using a camera included in the mobile phone (210), a real-time determination is made as to whether the content of the image is pornographic (220). If it is determined that the content of the image is pornographic, the content of the image is encrypted or inactivated (230). Then, a message attached with a representative problematic image frame is transmitted to a parental mobile device (240) controlled by the parent…If the parent determines that the representative problematic image frame is not problematic, control commands allowing the child to access the content of the image are transmitted to the child's mobile device (250)…”, wherein the determination made by the parent on the image and transmitted to the child’s mobile device is interpreted a report on the image, and the representative problematic image frame is interpreted as the metadata about the image); and
However, PARK in view of Dimitrova and Robson does not explicitly disclose the following limitation:
wherein the computing device includes a windowing system, the windowing system being configured to include a process of assigning z-order to windows which are to be displayed for viewing;
wherein the OAAS is configured to generate the one or more controlled images via an alpha blending process;
wherein the windowing system is configured to assign to the received input image classified by said image classifier to be non-clean a position in the z order;
wherein the OAAS is configured to cause the windowing system to replace the received input image classified by the image classifier to be non-clean in the z-order by the controlled image;
wherein the OAAS is configured to cause the windowing system to display the one or more controlled image as a topmost window;
wherein the OAAS is configured to recover the received images via a reverse alpha-blending process;
Lambe discloses wherein the computing device includes a windowing system (¶0039, “FIG. 2 illustrates a composite window display that includes multiple images and text content…”), the windowing system being configured to include a process of assigning z-order to windows which are to be displayed for viewing (¶0039, “each image is rendered via separate calls to the GDI. The aspects of the invention is adapted to intercept those calls. Thus, the aspects and methods of the invention can regulate the content as shown in FIG. 2 from being displayed in the event that any of its is inappropriate…”), (¶0100, “FIG. 7 illustrates a schematic representation of a user's overall screen view if the content in FIG. 6b is displayed. In addition, a window will display in the bottom right corner of the screen for a time bounded period offering the user the choice of overriding the content…”, wherein Z-order is interpreted as the arrangement of displayed images for viewing in a window system);
wherein the OAAS is configured to generate the one or more controlled images via an alpha blending process (¶0094, FIG. 5B, “… Alpha blending of the image with a second image so as to provide a significantly darkened and partially opaque image as shown in FIG. 5b…”);
wherein the windowing system is configured to assign to the received input image classified by said image classifier to be non-clean a position in the z order (¶0039, “each image is rendered via separate calls to the GDI. The aspects of the invention is adapted to intercept those calls. Thus, the aspects and methods of the invention can regulate the content as shown in FIG. 2 from being displayed in the event that any of its is inappropriate…”);
wherein the OAAS is configured to cause the windowing system to replace the received input image classified by the image classifier to be non-clean in the z-order by the controlled image (¶0096, “Replacement of image with other image--for example a stop sign as shown in FIG. 5d. On a modern PC the overhead of performing a blurring effect on the target image does not cause a noticeable performance penalty and therefore this approach (5b) is used in one embodiment of the application.”);
wherein the OAAS is configured to cause the windowing system to display the one or more controlled image as a topmost window (¶0100, FIG. 7, images on the left-hand corner of the screen are displayed on the topmost window);
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the system of PARK, Dimitrova, and Robson to include windowing system as disclose by Lambe and be motivated in doing so in order to display multiple images on the windowing system simultaneously.
Although, PARK discloses retrieving the stored representative problematic image frame in ¶0057, PARK in view of Dimitrova, Robson, and Lambe does not explicitly disclose the limitation of:
wherein the OAAS is configured to recover the received images via a reverse alpha-blending process;
Yamanashi discloses the limitation (Col. 8, lines 48-59, “The color and application concentration of the makeup is acquired, for example, by performing a process reverse to the above-described alpha blending process…”), see also claim 1 of Yamanashi.
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the system of PARK, Dimitrova, Robson, and Lambe to include reverse alpha-blending process as disclose by Yamanashi and be motivated in doing so in order to recover/acquire a reference color and application concentration of the makeup on the face of an image-Yamanashi, Col. 8, lines 48-50.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MUDASIRU K OLAEGBE whose telephone number is (571)272-2082. The examiner can normally be reached MON-FRI. 7.30AM-5.30PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Farid Homayounmehr can be reached at 5712723739. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MUDASIRU K OLAEGBE/Examiner, Art Unit 2495
/FARID HOMAYOUNMEHR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2495