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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/25/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 6, 8 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 6 recites the limitation "the number of pixels" in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For the prior art purposes, the limitation has been interpreted as a number of pixels. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 8 recites the limitation "the number of pixels" in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For the prior art purposes, the limitation has been interpreted as a number of pixels. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 10 recites the limitation "the first image " and “the second image” in lines 2 and 3, respectively. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim. For the prior art purposes, the limitations have been interpreted as “a first image” and “a second image”, respectively. The examiner believes that claim 10 should depend on claim 9, instead of claim 8. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
With respect to the independent claims, claims 1, 11 and 16, each recite(s) steps of detecting a shielding object and evaluating deterioration. These steps fall under one of the mental process grouping of abstract idea because they correspond to concepts performed in the human mind, e.g., observation and evaluation. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because additional limitations, which recite generic computer components such as a processor and a memory, correspond to mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. And for that same reason, the additional elements are not sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As such, claims 1, 11 and 16 are patent ineligible.
With respect to Claims 2, 4, 12, 14, 17, and 19, other than a step of detecting the shielding object that corresponds to concepts performed in the human mind, e.g., observation, each of these claims does not recite any additional limitations that may integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more. As such, claims 2, 4, 12, 14, 17, and 19 are also patent ineligible.
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) 1-5 and 11-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Us patent application publication no. 2021/0407052 to Wang et al. (hereinafter Wang) in view of us patent application publication no. 2014/0152877 to Honsho.
For claim 1, Wang as applied teaches an image processing apparatus comprising:
a memory storing instructions (see, e.g., pars. 149 and 158 and FIG. 9); and
a processor configured to execute the instructions (see, e.g., pars. 148 and 158 and FIG. 9) to:
detect a shielding object that shields part of a main object in an evaluation image obtained by imaging the main object (see, e.g., pars. 29-35, 43-44, 52, 99-112, and 117-118 and FIGS. 1, 2A, 3, 4, 6, and 7, which teach detecting a target shielding object that at least partially shields a target scene object in a media image obtained by imaging the target scene object), and
evaluate deterioration in a portion of the main object excluding the shielding object in the evaluation image (see, e.g., pars. 36-41, 45-48, 54, and 101-111 and FIGS. 1, 2B, 3, and 6,which teach determining how much the target shielding object shields the target scene object and the main shielding object and removing the target shielding object from the media image and from the shielding objects; the examiner interprets such a determination as the claimed deterioration evaluation because regions corresponding to the extent of shielding by the target shielding object would be removed and deteriorate, e.g., leave blank regions therein, the media image).
While the examiner believes that Wang as applied above teaches evaluating deterioration in a portion of the main object excluding the shielding object in the evaluation image, for the interest of compact prosecution, the examiner also relies on Honsho in the analogous art to explicitly teach evaluating and correcting the image excluding obstruction (see, e.g., pars. 75 -80 and FIGS. 9 and 11A-C of Honsho) and calculating the defocus amount excluding the obstruction (see, e.g., pars. 110-121 and FIGS. 11A-C and 15 of Honsho).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Wang to evaluate the deterioration as taught by Honsho because doing so would allow converting the obstruction image portion to be removed from the image with the reduced influence (see pars. 117-118 of Honsho).
For claim 11, Wang as applied teaches an image pickup apparatus comprising:
an image sensor (see, e.g., pars. 148 and 152 and FIG. 9);
a memory storing instructions (see, e.g., pars. 149 and 158 and FIG. 9); and
a processor configured to execute the instructions (see, e.g., pars. 148 and 158 and FIG. 9) to:
detect a shielding object that shields part of a main object in an evaluation image obtained by imaging the main object (see, e.g., pars. 29-35, 43-44, 52, 99-112, and 117-118 and FIGS. 1, 2A, 3, 4, 6, and 7, which teach detecting a target shielding object that at least partially shields a target scene object in a media image obtained by imaging the target scene object), and
evaluate deterioration in a portion of the main object excluding the shielding object in the evaluation image (see, e.g., pars. 36-41, 45-48, 54, and 101-111 and FIGS. 1, 2B, 3, and 6,which teach determining how much the target shielding object shields the target scene object and the main shielding object and removing the target shielding object from the media image and from the shielding objects; the examiner interprets such a determination as the claimed deterioration evaluation because regions corresponding to the extent of shielding by the target shielding object would be removed and deteriorate, e.g., leave blank regions therein, the media image).
While the examiner believes that Wang as applied above teaches evaluating deterioration in a portion of the main object excluding the shielding object in the evaluation image, for the interest of compact prosecution, the examiner also relies on Honsho in the analogous art to explicitly teach evaluating and correcting the image excluding obstruction (see, e.g., pars. 75 -80 and FIGS. 9 and 11A-C of Honsho) and calculating the defocus amount excluding the obstruction (see, e.g., pars. 110-121 and FIGS. 11A-C and 15 of Honsho).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Wang to evaluate the deterioration as taught by Honsho because doing so would allow converting the obstruction image portion to be removed from the image with the reduced influence (see pars. 117-118 of Honsho).
For claim 16, Wang as applied teaches an image processing method comprising the steps of:
detecting a shielding object that shields part of a main object in an evaluation image obtained by imaging the main object(see, e.g., pars. 29-35, 43-44, 52, 99-112, and 117-118 and FIGS. 1, 2A, 3, 4, 6, and 7, which teach detecting a target shielding object that at least partially shields a target scene object in a media image obtained by imaging the target scene object), and
evaluating deterioration in a portion of the main object excluding the shielding object in the evaluation image (see, e.g., pars. 36-41, 45-48, 54, and 101-111 and FIGS. 1, 2B, 3, and 6,which teach determining how much the target shielding object shields the target scene object and the main shielding object and removing the target shielding object from the media image and from the shielding objects; the examiner interprets such a determination as the claimed deterioration evaluation because regions corresponding to the extent of shielding by the target shielding object would be removed and deteriorate, e.g., leave blank regions therein, the media image).
While the examiner believes that Wang as applied above teaches evaluating deterioration in a portion of the main object excluding the shielding object in the evaluation image, for the interest of compact prosecution, the examiner is also relying on Honsho in the analogous art to explicitly teach evaluating and correcting the image excluding obstruction (see, e.g., pars. 75 -80 and FIGS. 9 and 11A-C of Honsho) and calculating the defocus amount excluding the obstruction (see, e.g., pars. 110-121 and FIGS. 11A-C and 15 of Honsho).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Wang to evaluate the deterioration as taught by Honsho because doing so would allow converting the obstruction image portion to be removed from the image with the reduced influence (see pars. 117-118 of Honsho).
For claims 2, 12 and 17, Wang in view of Honsho teaches that the processor is configured to detect the shielding object based on a characteristic about pixel values corresponding to the shielding object (see, e.g., pars. 99-112 and FIG. 6 of Wang, which teach recognizing the target shielding object at a pixel level by performing pixel segmentation).
For claims 3, 13 and 18, Wang in view of Honsho teaches that the processor is configured to detect the shielding object using a result of machine learning of a combination of a captured image of an object that can be the shielding object and a captured image in which the object that can be the shielding object shields part of an object that can be imaged (see, e.g., pars. 104-112 and FIG. 6 of Wang, which teach detecting the target shielding object that partially shields the main shielding object from shielding objects in the image using a convolutional neural network).
For claims 4, 14 and 19, Wang in view of Honsho teaches that the processor is configured to detect the shielding object in part of a detection area of the evaluation image (see, e.g., pars. 99-112 and FIG. 6 of Wang, which teach detecting the target shielding object in a region of the media image corresponding to the shielding objects).
For claims 5, 15 and 20, Wang in view of Honsho teaches that the processor is configured to change a size of the detection area according to at least one of a deteriorated state of the shielding object in the evaluation image and an exposure condition in the imaging (see, e.g., pars. 101-111 and FIG. 6 of Wang, which teach changing the size of the region to be removed according to how much the target shield object occupies, i.e., deteriorates, the region corresponding to the shielding objects).
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang in view of Honsho and further in view of Us patent application publication no. 2009/0214121 to Yokokawa et al. (hereinafter Yokokawa).
For claim 6, while Wang in view of Honsho does not explicitly teach, Yokokawa in the analogous art teaches that the processor is configured to evaluate the deterioration using the number of pixels having an edge intensity higher than a predetermined intensity in the evaluation image (see, e.g., pars. 87-90 and FIG. 2 of Yokokawa, which teach detecting a blur degree using the numbers of pixels whose intensity is equal to or larger than the certain level).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Wang in view of Honsho to evaluate the deterioration as taught by Yokokawa because doing so would allow determining the blur state of the input image at a higher accuracy (see pars. 74 and 92 of Yokokawa).
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang in view of Honsho and further in view of Us patent application publication no. 2011/0317044 to Ishii et al. (hereinafter Ishii).
For claim 7, while Wang in view of Honsho does not explicitly teach, Ishii in the analogous art teaches that the processor is configured to evaluate the deterioration using a point spread function obtained from the evaluation image (see, e.g., pars. 17-19, 61-67 and FIG. 5 of Ishii, which teach estimating the direction and size of the blur by estimating a PSF of each region in the input image).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Wang in view of Honsho to evaluate the deterioration as taught by Ishii because doing so would allow clustering and correcting of image regions with similar blurs, which would make possible to perform more precise blur correction and reduce the calculation load (see pars. 36-38 of Ishii).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 9 is 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.
In regard to claim 9, when considered as a whole, prior art of record fails to disclose or render obvious, alone or in combination:
“the processor is configured to:
perform processing of reducing a first image as the evaluation image,
evaluate the deterioration in a second image obtained by the processing of reducing the first image, and
determine whether or not to evaluate the deterioration in the first image according to an evaluation result in the second image.”
Claims 8 and 10 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Additional Citations
The following table lists several references that are relevant to the subject matter claimed and disclosed in this Application. The references are not relied on by the Examiner, but are provided to assist the Applicant in responding to this Office action.
Citation
Relevance
Hari et al. (us pat. pub. No. 2024/0087333)
Describes techniques for detecting occluded objects within an environment. For instance, systems and methods may receive training data representing images and ground truth data indicating whether the images are associated with occluded objects or whether the images are not associated with occluded objects. The systems and methods may then train a neural network to detect occluded objects using the training data and the ground truth data. After training, the systems and methods may use the neural network to detect occluded objects within an environment. For instance, while a vehicle is navigating, the vehicle may process sensor data using the neural network. The neural network may then output data indicating whether an object is located within the environment and occluded from view of the vehicle. In some examples, the neural network may further output additional information associated with the occluded object.
Liu et al. (us pat. pub. No. 2021/0150751)
Describes methods and systems for occlusion detection. One embodiment includes detecting a set of foreground object masks in an image, including a mask of a visible portion of a foreground object and a mask of the foreground object that includes at least one occluded portion, using a machine learning model. A set of background object masks is detected in the image, including a mask of a visible portion of a background object and a mask of the background object that includes at least one occluded portion, using the machine learning model. The set of foreground object masks and the set of background object masks are merged using semantic merging. A computer vision task is performed that accounts for the at least one occluded portion of at least one object of the merged set.
Wu et al. (us pat. pub. No. 2021/0158021)
Describes a method for processing images. In one embodiment, the method can include: acquiring a target face image, and performing face key point detection on the target face image; acquiring a first fusion image by fusing a virtual special effect and a face part matched in the target face image based on a face key point detection result; acquiring an occlusion mask of the target face image; and generating a second fusion image based on the occlusion mask and the first fusion image.
Table 1
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See Table 1 and form 892.
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/WOO C RHIM/Examiner, Art Unit 2676