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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 08/26/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 07/28/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
On pages 7-8, Applicant argues that,
“As amended, claims 1, 10, and 19 recite "wherein each central portion contains common image elements selected according to an image stabilization operation." Support for these amendments can be found at least at paragraph [0016] of the specification. Pulli does not teach or suggest these features.
In particular, in Pulli, an object (e.g., car) is shown at different locations in a field of view. (See, e.g., Figures 12-15, showing object 1516 moving). Importantly, however, Pulli does not disclose a central portion of source frames that have common subject matter. In particular, Figures 12-15 illustrate the object 1516 overlapping different camera areas (e.g., areas A-F). However, claims 1, 10, and 19 recite that the central portions of the source frames from the narrow-angle camera contain common image elements. In other words, claims 1, 10, and 19 recite common image elements in the central portion of a narrow-angle camera. By contrast, the portions that contain common elements in Pulli are not central portions - rather, these portions run up to one or more edges of middle fields of view (e.g., 1618). These common portions in Pulli therefore cannot be considered "central" portions. In other words, Pulli does not teach that "each central portion contains common image elements selected according to an image stabilization operation." For this reason, Pulli cannot teach the above features recited in claims 1, 10, and 19.
In view of the foregoing, Applicant submits that the cited references do not teach each and every feature of claims 1, 10 and 19. Therefore, Applicant requests withdrawal of the rejections of claims 1, 10 and 19 and all claims dependent thereon.
…”
(original emphases)
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees and submits that Pulli teaches, at least in paragraph [0179] and Fig. 12, a narrow-angle camera comprising camera modules A, B, C, D, and E and a wide-angle camera comprising camera module G.
Thus, during the first and the second image capture time period (see paragraph [0153] of Pulli), there are two central portions and two peripheral portions of a plurality of source frames based on image stabilization are identified:
For a first frame captured during first image capture time period, central portion 1516 of Fig. 14 is identified,
For a second frame captured during second image capture time period, central portion 1516 within FOV 1618 shown in Fig. 15 is identified
For the second frame captured during second image capture time period peripheral portions MP1 and MP2 are identified.
Examiner respectfully submits that each of the central portion 1516 of Fig. 14 for the first frame and the central portion 1516 within FOV 1618 of Fig. 15 contains common image elements, which are the majority parts (except for a front portions) of the car.
Finally, all these portions are combined to generate an output video, i.e. the first frame comprising the whole central portion 1516 of Fig. 14, then the second frame that follows the first frame would have the central portion of the second frame mentioned above together with the parts MP1 and MP2.
As such, Applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-7, 9-16, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Pulli et al. (US 2017/0099439 A1 – hereinafter Pulli).
Regarding claim 1, Pulli discloses a method for generating video, the method comprising: obtaining a plurality of source frames with a wide-angle camera and a narrow-angle camera (Fig. 12; [0179] – obtaining images from a camera module G having a wider field of view and an image from a camera having a narrow field of view comprising camera modules A, B, C, D, and E); identifying a plurality of central portions and a plurality of peripheral portions of the plurality of source frames based on image stabilization ([0183]-[0184]; [0190]; Figs. 14-16 – identifying central regions of the first image captured during first image capture time period and the second image captured during second image capture time period, the central portion in the first image corresponds to portion 1516 of Fig. 14, the central portion in the second image corresponds to the portion 1516 within FOV 1618 of Fig. 15, and at least two peripheral portions MP1 and MP2 as shown in Fig. 16 – also see “Response to Arguments” above), wherein each central portion comprises a sub-portion of a source frame from the narrow-angle camera and each peripheral portion includes image content for an area within a field of view of the narrow angle camera ([0182]-[0184]; Figs. 14-16 – each central portion comprises a central portion of the frames captured by the narrow-angle camera and each peripheral portion includes image content for an area within a field of view of the narrow angle camera A); and combining the plurality of central portions and the plurality of peripheral portions to generate a plurality of resulting frames of an output video ([0064]; [0190] – combining the portions from each image, wherein the portions comprise the central portions of frames captured by the narrow-angle camera during in the first and second image capture time periods and peripheral portions MP1 and MP2 to generate an output video).
Regarding claim 2, Pulli also discloses the plurality of source frames comprise frames taken a consecutive, periodic time points ([0014]-[0015]).
Regarding claim 3, Pulli also discloses identifying the plurality of central portions based on image stabilization comprises identifying portions of the source frames to minimize apparent motion of content ([0184] – identifying the portions to minimize the effect of the motion of the camera modules).
Regarding claim 4, Pulli also discloses the identifying the plurality of central portions based on the image stabilization comprises minimizing a loss function ([0011]; [0187]-[0189] – minimizing a loss function defined as an amount of information loss in portions interested by the user).
Regarding claim 5, Pulli also discloses the central portions are taken from the narrow-angle camera and the peripheral portions are taken from the wide-angle camera ([0206]; Figs. 19-21 – the peripheral portions 2208 are taken from a camera module F or a camera module G having a wider field of view and the central portions are taken a camera having a narrow field of view, one of camera module A).
Regarding claim 6, Pulli also discloses identifying the plurality of peripheral portions comprises identifying areas around the central portions in a plurality of wide- angle views taken with the wide-angle camera (Fig. 6 – identifying areas MP1 and MP 2 captured by camera module G as shown in the table).
Regarding claim 7, Pulli also discloses combining the plurality of central portions and the plurality of peripheral portions comprises surrounding the plurality of central ([0190]; Fig. 16).
Regarding claim 9, Pulli also discloses performing one or more of encoding, storing, and transmitting the output video ([0064] – performing storing and transmitting, i.e. transmitting the output video to another device for further processing and/or sent for storage, e.g., in external memory, an external device or in a network).
Claim 10 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 1 in view of Pulli also disclosing a system for generating video (Fig. 1), the system comprising: a wide-angle camera and a narrow-angle camera (Fig. 1; [0179] – a narrow-angle camera comprising camera modules A-E and a wide-angle camera comprising camera module G); and a processor ([0075]; Fig. 1 – processor 110) configured to perform the recited steps ([0075] – also see discussion of claim 1).
Claim 11 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 2 above.
Claim 12 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 3 above.
Claim 13 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 4 above.
Claim 14 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 5 above.
Claim 15 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 6 above.
Claim 16 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 7 above.
Claim 18 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 9 above.
Claim 19 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 1 above in view of Pulli also disclosing a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the recited operations ([0075]; Fig. 1 – memory 108 storing software modules and/or routines which include instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to control the camera device 100 to implement one, more or all of the methods described herein).
Claim 20 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 2 above.
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.
Claims 8 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pulli as applied to claims 1-7, 9-16, and 18-20 above, and further in view of Li et al. (US 2023/0098437 A1 – hereinafter Li).
Regarding claim 8, see the teachings of Pulli as discussed in claim 1 above. However, Pulli does not disclose combining the plurality of central portions and the plurality of peripheral portions comprises upscaling the plurality of peripheral portions.
Li discloses combining a plurality of central portions and a plurality of peripheral portions comprises upscaling the plurality of peripheral portions (Fig. 3; [0050]-[0051]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to incorporate the teachings of Li into the method taught by Pulli to provide data consistency before processing, facilitating the combining process.
Claim 17 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 8 above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HUNG Q DANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1116. The examiner can normally be reached IFT.
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/HUNG Q DANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2484