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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Species II, claims 11-20, in the reply filed on 4/22/2026 is acknowledged.
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) 11 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fauconnet (PGPUB: 20180044132 A1) in view of KUWAN (JP H08127476 A), in view of Wang (CN 106006266 A), and further in view of Luo (CN 109626149 A).
Regarding claim 11 Fauconnet teaches a method for sensing a fill level of a space, comprising:
obtaining a real-time ground image of the current space through a camera (see Fig. 4, paragraph 50, the occupancy detection system can obtain or capture images of the occupancy of the elevator car, as indicated at block 406);
comparing the real-time ground image with a ground reference image (see paragraph 9, the elevator control system may include that the occupancy detection system captures a reference image of the elevator car and compares currently captured images with the reference image to determine the occupancy level), and
outputting a fill level of the space corresponding to the ratios (see paragraph 42, The single camera configurations are selected and oriented such that the camera can capture an image of the whole surface of the elevator car. When the occupancy detection system is first put into service (e.g., just after installation of the elevator car), the occupancy detection system will use the associated detector to take a first image as a “reference image” of an empty elevator car (e.g., occupancy level=0%). Then, the occupancy detection system can operate in normal operation mode, and the detector (e.g., camera) will take an image of the elevator car at some predetermined interval (e.g., every 1 or 2 seconds) in order to determine the available space inside the elevator car by making a comparison with the reference image).
However, Fauconnet does not expressly teach calculating the image difference between the real-time ground image and the ground reference image.
KUWAN teaches that the present invention obtains a difference image which is a difference between an input image photographed by a camera at a predetermined entrance and a reference image photographed beforehand when there is no passenger at the entrance, and calculates the difference image between the input image and the difference image (see page 7, lines 21-25).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Fauconnet by KUWAN to obtain obtains a difference image which is a difference between an input image photographed by a camera at a predetermined entrance and a reference image photographed beforehand when there is no passenger at the entrance, and calculates the difference image between the input image and the difference image, in order to provide calculating the image difference between the real-time ground image and the ground reference image. Therefore, combining the elements from prior arts according to known methods and technique would yield predictable results.
However, the combination does not expressly teach converting the image difference into a binary image.
Wang teaches that when detecting the car door closing signal, the background reduction method for the current video frame Ik Bk with the background model difference obtaining difference image Dk, then carrying out binarization processing to the differential image Dk The binarization formula, then removing noise by morphological filtering algorithm, finally performing area analysis to the result after removing noise (see page 5, lines 1-5).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination by Wang to obtain when detecting the car door closing signal, the background reduction method for the current video frame Ik Bk with the background model difference obtaining difference image Dk, then carrying out binarization processing to the differential image Dk, in order to provide converting the image difference into a binary image. Therefore, combining the elements from prior arts according to known methods and technique would yield predictable results.
However, the combination does not expressly teach calculating ratios of specified pixels to all ground pixels in the binary image.
Luo teaches that step S310, obtaining the carriage image of elevator car is in the load state, the carriage image as a reference image; load state the carriage images obtained by the camera in the elevator car, the carriage image as a calculation reference of the elevator car of the current space availability. when the car after long-term use, its internal because of stains, device aging and other reasons becomes different from the original appearance, therefore, optionally, pre-set time interval, updating the load state of the carriage image (see Fig.3, page 12, lines 18-24); acquired at a predetermined cycle (shooting) the elevator car image, as the image to be detected, and the to-be-detected image with a reference image pixel comparison, capturing an image through a high frequency for comparing and detecting method, can improve the sensitivity and accuracy of detection (see Fig. 3, page 12, lines 32-35); step S312, calculating spatial availability of the to-be-detected image and reference image according to pixel contrast results; the to-be-detected image with a reference image pixel and the contrast pixel point to be similar to the reference image are the same in the images is detected to count the ratio of all pixel point computing statistics of similar pixel point in the to-be-detected image/reference image to obtain space availability to be detected image and reference image (see Fig. 3, page 13, lines 1-7).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination by Luo to obtain calculating spatial availability of the to-be-detected image and reference image according to pixel contrast results and the to-be-detected image with a reference image pixel and the contrast pixel point to be similar to the reference image are the same in the images is detected to count the ratio of all pixel point computing statistics of similar pixel point in the to-be-detected image/reference image to obtain space availability to be detected image and reference image, in order to provide calculating ratios of specified pixels to all ground pixels in the binary image. Therefore, combining the elements from prior arts according to known methods and technique would yield predictable results.
Regarding claim 19. (Original) The method of claim 11, wherein the step of converting the image difference into a binary image further comprises:
inputting a screening threshold to further screen the binary image according to the screening threshold (see Wang, page 7, lines 9-15, after building the background model, collect the car door closing signal, the background reduction method for the current video frame Ik Bk with the background model difference obtaining difference image Dk, then carrying out binarization processing to the difference image according to the binarization formula, the difference image may comprise some noise, and remove the effect of some noise by morphological filtering algorithm, at last the result after de-noising by area analysis, if area of connected region greater than the set threshold value).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 12-18 and 20 are 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.
Conclusion
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/XIN JIA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2663
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