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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 06/23/2026 has been entered. Claims 1-18 and 20-21 are pending in this application.
Claims 1, 14, and 18 have been amended. Claim 19 are cancelled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 14, and 18 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1 and 2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores) in view of David Monroe (US 20040117638 A1) (hereinafter Monroe):
Regarding claim 1, Flores teaches a method for operating a security system of a facility ([0038], [0019], and [0033] teach a method of operating a surveillance security system), the method comprising:
receiving a video from a video camera of the security system of the facility ([0022], and [0033] teach receiving camera video feeds at the video surveillance system);
identifying an event of interest occurring in the video via video analytics ([0027] teaches identifying an incident in the video feed via automated pattern recognition);
classifying the event of interest into one of plurality of event severity levels ([0026], and [0025] teach classifying the identified incident into one of three severity levels);
when the event of interest is classified as having a first event severity level corresponding to a lower threat level ([0028], and [0026] teach a low severity alert level that is communicated differently from higher levels), automatically, sending an alert to a monitoring station of the security system ([0032], and [0028] teach automatically presenting the low alert at the operator monitoring interface); and
when the event of interest is classified as having a second event severity level corresponding to a higher threat level than the first event severity level ([0026], and [0055] teach a high severity alert level for higher threat incidents), automatically sending an alert for an external first responder outside the facility ([0028], [0055], and [0051] teach automatically notifying the emergency dispatch system and responding personnel on a high severity alert), wherein the external first responder is a police department, a fire department, an ambulance, or a combination thereof ([0020], and [0002] teach the first responders being law enforcement, fire safety personnel, and ambulances).
Flores does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Monroe teaches a monitoring station of the security system that is located within the facility ([0157], [0154], and [0262] teach monitor stations located within the facility).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores to add the teachings of Monroe as disclosed above to improve the response time for onsite security personals for a detected threat (Monroe [0247]).
Regarding claim 2, Flores in view of Monroe teaches the method of claim 1. Flores further teaches sending an alert to the operator of the security system when the event of interest is classified as having the second event severity level of the plurality of event severity levels ([0028], and [0056] teach alerting the VOC operator on a high severity alert).
Claims 3 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores) in view of David Monroe (US 20040117638 A1) (hereinafter Monroe), and further in view of Shamindra Saha (US 20200388139 A1) (hereinafter Saha):
Regarding claim 3, Flores in view of Monroe teaches the method of claim 1; however, it does not explicitly teach wherein the event of interest occurring in the video comprises a person exhibiting behavior that is of interest including one or more of:
a person carrying a weapon;
a person having a facial expression that shows fear;
a person kicking another person;
a person punching another person;
a person throwing an object;
a person dropping and leaving an object;
a person shouting and/or screaming; and
a person running.
However, in an analogous art, Saha teaches wherein the event of interest occurring in the video comprises a person exhibiting behavior that is of interest ([0075] teaches the detected event being a person doing an unusual activity of interest) including one or more of:
a person carrying a weapon ([0075], and [0050] teach a person swinging a knife and a detected gun);
a person having a facial expression that shows fear ([0071], and [0075] teach detecting A frightened or scared facial expression).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe to further add the teachings of Saha as disclosed above to accurately detect potentially threatening activity in real time (Saha [0018]).
Regarding claim 4, Flores in view of Monroe teaches the method of claim 1; however, it does not explicitly teach wherein identifying the event of interest occurring in the video includes identifying the event of interest using artificial intelligence, wherein the artificial intelligence includes a context-aware event model.
However, in an analogous art, Saha teaches wherein identifying the event of interest occurring in the video includes identifying the event of interest using artificial intelligence ([0074], and [0073] teach identifying threatening events with a decision tree and self-learning module), wherein the artificial intelligence includes a context-aware event model ([0023], and [0076] teach determining the threat event in view of the context including background, time, and history).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe to further add the teachings of Saha as disclosed above to accurately detect potentially threatening activity in real time (Saha [0018]).
Claims 5 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores) in view of David Monroe (US 20040117638 A1) (hereinafter Monroe), and further in view of Tae Eun Choe (US 20130129307 A1) (hereinafter Choe):
Regarding claim 5, Flores in view of Monroe teaches the method of claim 1; however, it does not explicitly teach generating one or more captions describing the event of interest;
extracting a first video clip of the event of interest;
assembling an investigative report that includes the first video clip of the event of interest and the one or more captions describing the event of interest; and
exporting the investigative report.
However, an analogous art, Choe teaches generating one or more captions describing the event of interest ([0058], and [0072] teach automatically generating text descriptions of each detected event);
extracting a first video clip of the event of interest ([0065], and [0085] teach storing and retrieving the video clip of the event);
assembling an investigative report that includes the first video clip of the event of interest and the one or more captions describing the event of interest ([0068], and [0069] teach creating a report containing the event descriptions and the event video clip); and
exporting the investigative report ([0073], and [0093] teach outputting the report as a file and transmitting it to a client computer).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe to further add the teachings of Choe as disclosed above to improve the accuracy of video surveillance (Choe [0077]).
Regarding claim 6, Flores in view of Monroe and Choe teaches the method of claim 5. Choe further teaches wherein the one or more captions comprise natural language captions describing the event of interest occurring in the video ([0014], [0066], and [0072] teach the event descriptions being natural language sentences).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe to further add the teachings of Choe as disclosed above to improve the accuracy of video surveillance (Choe [0077]).
Claims 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores) in view of David Monroe (US 20040117638 A1) (hereinafter Monroe) in view of Tae Eun Choe (US 20130129307 A1) (hereinafter Choe), and further in view of Hooman Mahyar (US 10999566 B1) (hereinafter Mahyar):
Regarding claim 7, Flores in view of Monroe and Choe teaches the method of claim 6. Flores further teaches wherein the video includes a video track and a sound track ([0022] teaches the camera feed includes audio).
Flores does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Choe further teaches wherein the one or more captions include: a caption describing the event of interest in the video track ([0073] teaches captions describing the events shown in the video).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe to further add the teachings of Choe as disclosed above to improve the accuracy of video surveillance (Choe [0077]).
Choe does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Mahyar teaches a caption describing the event of interest in the sound track ([Col 3: lines 15- 19], [Col 3: lines 50- 58], and [Col 9: lines 7-12] teach generating a text description of events recognized in the audio).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe and Choe to further add the teachings of Mahyar as disclosed above to improve user understanding of the events (Mahyar [Col 2: Line 15-16]).
Regarding claim 8, Flores in view of Monroe and Choe teaches the method of claim 5; however, it does not explicitly teach wherein generating one or more captions describing the event of interest includes generating the one or more captions using artificial intelligence, wherein the artificial intelligence includes a context-aware video captioning model that generates natural language captions of the event of interest.
However, in an analogous art, Mahyar teaches wherein generating one or more captions describing the event of interest includes generating the one or more captions using artificial intelligence ([Col 3: lines 1- 7] teaches generating text descriptions of video using neural networks and machine learning), wherein the artificial intelligence includes a context-aware video captioning model that generates natural language captions of the event of interest ([Col 3: lines 27- 32], [Col 9: lines 30- 33], and [Col 2: lines 15- 33] teach a captioning model that uses contextual relationships to generate natural language descriptions).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe and Choe to further add the teachings of Mahyar as disclosed above to improve user understanding of the events (Mahyar [Col 2: Line 15-16]).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores) in view of David Monroe (US 20040117638 A1) (hereinafter Monroe) in view of Tae Eun Choe (US 20130129307 A1) (hereinafter Choe), and further in view of James Carey ( EP 3332549 A1) (hereinafter Carey):
Regarding claim 9, Flores in view of Monroe and Choe teaches the method of claim 5; however, it does not explicitly teach extracting a second video clip of the event of interest; and
assembling the investigative report that includes the first video clip of the event of interest, the second video clip of the event of interest and the one or more captions describing the event of interest.
However, in an analogous art, Carey teaches extracting a second video clip of the event of interest ([00134], and [00143] teach a second video sequence of the same event being obtained for the investigation); and
assembling the investigative report that includes the first video clip of the event of interest, the second video clip of the event of interest and the one or more captions describing the event of interest ([00143], [0086], an [00130] teach an investigation assembled from the first and second video sequences and descriptive data of the event).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe and Choe to further add the teachings of Carey as disclosed above to real time and post time analysis of the incidents (Carey [0006] – [0007]).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores), in view of David Monroe (US 20040117638 A1) (hereinafter Monroe), in view of Tae Eun Choe (US 20130129307 A1) (hereinafter Choe), in view of James Carey ( EP 3332549 A1) (hereinafter Carey), and further in view of John Modestine (US 20180233025 A1) (hereinafter Modestine):
Regarding claim 10, Flores in view of Monroe, Choe, and Carey teaches the method of claim 9. Carey further teaches wherein the first video clip is captured by a first video camera and the second video clip is captured by a second video camera ([00134] teaches the first and second video sequences captured by different cameras).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe and Choe to further add the teachings of Carey as disclosed above to real time and post time analysis of the incidents (Carey [0006] – [0007]).
Carey does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Modestine teaches wherein the first video camera and the second video camera are in communication via a peer-to-peer network ([0035], and [0333] teach the first security device sending the signal directly to the second camera), wherein the first video camera automatically informs the second video camera to start recording when the event of interest is detected moving toward the second video camera ([0028], and [0328] teach sending a recording activation signal to the second camera upon determining the person is moving toward it).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe, Choe, and Carey to further add the teachings of Modestine as disclosed above to improve motion tracking using multiple cameras (Modestine [0334]).
Claims 11, 14, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores), in view of David Monroe (US 20040117638 A1) (hereinafter Monroe), and further in view of Maebh Costello (US 20200134947 A1) (hereinafter Costello):
Regarding claim 11, Flores in view of Monroe teaches the method of claim 1. Flores further teaches identifying a suspect in the video that is associated with the event of interest ([0045] teaches identifying the suspect appearing in the incident video);
Flores does not explicitly teach the following limitations; However, in an analogous art, Monroe further teaches identifying an image of the face of the suspect in the video ([0182], and [0044] teach detecting and cutting the facial image of the person performing the event from the video);
submitting the image of the face of the suspect to a facial recognition engine to identify the identity of the suspect ([0033], and [0163] teach facial database lookup returning the identified person's name and record).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores to add the teachings of Monroe as disclosed above to improve the response time for onsite security personals for a detected threat (Monroe [0247]).
Monroe does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Costello teaches identifying an access card of the identified suspect, wherein the access card needs to be presented to access card readers of the security system for the identified suspect to access areas of the facility ([0052], [0006], and [0055] teach the identified person's badge number and presenting the ID card to card readers); and
activating an access card trace for the access card of the identified suspect in order to track subsequent movement of the suspect in the facility ([0090], [0096], and [0099] teach creating a badge trace on the person's badge to report badge activity in the monitored area), wherein the access card trace is configured to report each time the access card of the identified suspect is presented to an access card reader of the security system along with a location of the corresponding access card reader in the facility ([0091], and [0064] teach reporting each badge use with a detecting device and its location).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe to further add the teachings of Costello as disclosed above to improve the response time of security operators (Costello [0038]).
Regarding claim 14, Flores teaches a method for operating a security system of a facility, ([0038], [00 19], and [0033] teach a method of operating a surveillance security system) the method comprising:
receiving a video from a video camera of the security system of the facility ([0022], and [0033] teach receiving camera video feeds at the video surveillance system);
identifying an event of interest occurring in the video via video analytics ([0027] teaches identifying an incident in the video feed via automated pattern recognition);
identifying a suspect in the video that is associated with the event of interest ([0045] teaches video analytics identifying the person appearing in the incident video).
Flores does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Monroe teaches identifying an image of the face of the suspect in the video ([0182], and [0044] teach detecting and cutting the facial image of the person performing the event from the video);
submitting the image of the face of the suspect to a facial recognition engine to identify the identity of the suspect ([0033], and [0163] teach facial database lookup returning the identified person's name and record);
a monitoring station of the security system that is located within the facility ([0157], [0154], and [0262] teach monitor stations located within the facility).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores to add the teachings of Monroe as disclosed above to improve the response time for onsite security personals for a detected threat (Monroe [0247]).
Monroe does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Costello teaches identifying an access card of the identified suspect, wherein the access card needs to be presented to access card readers of the security system for the identified suspect to access areas of the facility ([0052], [0006], and [0055] teach the identified person's badge number and presenting the ID card to card readers); and
in response to identifying the identity of the suspect from the video via video analytics, automatically activating an access card trace for the access card of the identified suspect, which tracks subsequent movement of the suspect in the facility following the event of interest ([0063], [0068], and [0090] teach detecting the person of interest by facial recognition and automatically reporting subsequent badge trace activity within the monitored area), wherein the access card trace is configured to automatically generate a notification each time the access card of the identified suspect is subsequently presented to an access card reader of the security system ([0064], [0066], and [0068] teach automatically sending a notification when the traced badge number is scanned at a reader) the notification including a specific location identifier of the corresponding access card reader within the facility ([0091], and [0092] teach the notification identifying the device detecting the badge use and its location); and
providing the notifications to a monitoring station of the security system ([0050] teaches the notification being added to the alarm queue of the security system) to enable tracking of the suspect's movement through the facility ([0090], and [0064] teach reporting badge trace activity and location within the monitored area).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe to further add the teachings of Costello as disclosed above to improve the response time of security operators (Costello [0038]).
Regarding claim 16, Flores in view of Monroe and Costello teaches the method of claim 14. Flores further teaches classifying the event of interest into one of plurality of event severity levels ([0026], and [0025] teach classifying the identified incident into one of three severity levels);
automatically sending an alert to an operator of the security system when the event of interest is classified as having a first event severity level of the plurality of event severity levels ([0028], an [0032] teach automatically presenting a low severity alert to the operator); and
automatically sending an alert for a first responder when the event of interest is classified as having a second event severity level of the plurality of event severity levels ([0026], [0028], and [0055] teach automatically notifying emergency dispatch and personnel on a high severity alert), wherein the first responder is a police department, a fire department, an ambulance, or a combination thereof ([0020], and [0002] teach the first responders being law enforcement, fire safety personnel, and ambulances).
Claims 12 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores), in view of David Monroe (US 20040117638 A1) (hereinafter Monroe), in view of Maebh Costello (US 20200134947 A1) (hereinafter Costello), and further in view of David Carta (US 20030028814 A1) (hereinafter Carta):
Regarding claim 12, Flores and view of Monroe and Costello teaches the method of claim 11; however, it does not explicitly teach at least partially deactivating the access card of the identified suspect to prevent the suspect from accessing one or more areas of the facility.
However, in an analogous art, Carta teaches at least partially deactivating the access card of the identified suspect to prevent the suspect from accessing one or more areas of the facility ([0038], and [0037] teach invalidating the access card so that readers deny access to secured areas).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe and Costello to further add the teachings of Carta as disclosed above to improve security and prevent breaches (Carta [0037]).
Regarding claim 15, Flores in view of Monroe and Costello teaches the method of claim 14; however, it does not explicitly teach at least partially deactivating the access card of the identified suspect to prevent the suspect from accessing one or more areas of the facility.
However, in an analogous art, Carta teaches comprising at least partially deactivating the access card of the identified suspect to prevent the suspect from accessing one or more areas of the facility ([0038], and [0037] teach invalidating the access card so that readers deny access to secured areas).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe and Costello to further add the teachings of Carta as disclosed above to improve security and prevent breaches (Carta [0037]).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores), in view of David Monroe (US 20040117638 A1) (hereinafter Monroe), and further in view of John Modestine (US 20180233025 A1) (hereinafter Modestine):
Regarding claim 13, Flores in view of Monroe teaches the method of claim 1. Flores further teaches when the event of interest is classified as having the first event severity level of the plurality of event severity levels and/or when the event of interest is classified as having the second event severity level of the plurality of event severity levels ([0026], and [0028] teach alerts triggered upon classification at the low or high severity level).
Flores does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Monroe further teaches activating an audio alarm ([0095], [0096], and [0097] teach generating an audible alarm at the area of infringement upon an alarm condition).
Monroe does not explicitly teach the following limitations; However, in an analogous art, Modestine teaches activating an audio alarm via the video camera ([0107], [0140], and [0152] teach the camera device having a speaker that emits audio toward the intruder).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe to further add the teachings of Modestine as disclosed above to improve motion tracking using multiple cameras (Modestine [0334]).
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores), in view of David Monroe (US 20040117638 A1) (hereinafter Monroe), in view of Maebh Costello (US 20200134947 A1) (hereinafter Costello), and further in view of Tae Eun Choe (US 20130129307 A1) (hereinafter Choe):
Regarding claim 17, Flores in view of Monroe and Costello teaches the method of claim 14; however, it does not explicitly teach generating one or more captions describing the event of interest;
extracting a first video clip of the event of interest;
assembling an investigative report that includes the first video clip of the event of interest and the one or more captions describing the event of interest; and
exporting the investigative report.
However, in an analogous art, Choe teaches generating one or more captions describing the event of interest ([0058], and [0072] teach automatically generating text descriptions of each detected event);
extracting a first video clip of the event of interest ([0065], and [0085] teach storing and retrieving the video clip of the event);
assembling an investigative report that includes the first video clip of the event of interest and the one or more captions describing the event of interest ([0068], and [0069] teach creating a report containing the event descriptions and the event video clip); and
exporting the investigative report ([0073], and [0093] teach outputting the report as a file and transmitting it to a client computer).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Monroe and Costello to further add the teachings of Choe as disclosed above to improve the accuracy of video surveillance (Choe [0077]).
Claims 18 and 21 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores) in view of Tae Eun Choe (US 20130129307 A1) (hereinafter Choe):
Regarding claim 18, Flores teaches a method for operating a security system of a facility ([0038], [0019], and [0033] teach a method of operating a surveillance security system), the method comprising:
receiving a video from a video camera of the security system of the facility ([0022], and [0033] teach receiving camera video feeds at the video surveillance system);
identifying an event of interest occurring in the video via video analytics ([0027] teaches identifying an incident in the video feed via automated pattern recognition);
Flores does not explicitly teach the following limitations; However, in an analogous art, Choe teaches using a natural language generation engine to automatically generate ([0058], and [0072] teach a text generation engine automatically generating natural language descriptions of the events), from time- stamped image data of the event of interest ([0056], and [0060] teach video images and detected objects associated with timestamps), one or more natural language captions each describing an action occurring during the event of interest ([0066], and [0064] teach natural language sentences each describing an action), wherein each of the one or more natural language captions identifies a specific video camera of the security system that captured the described action ([0062], [0066], and [0086] teach each sentence stating the pre-stored location of the video camera that captured the images and grouping events by the capturing camera), and wherein the one or more natural language captions provide descriptive documentation of the event of interest suitable as forensic evidence in a forensic investigation of the event of interest ([0002], [0014], and [0077] teach natural language annotations with time and location for analysis);
automatically extracting a first video clip of the event of interest from the video ([0065], [0085], and [0093] teach automatically storing the video clip of the detected event);
automatically assembling an investigative report that includes the first video clip of the event of interest ([0069], and [0075] teach an automatically generated report linking each event to its video clip), a time of occurrence of the event of interest ([0068] teaches the report including the time the video occurred and the time interval of each event), and the one or more natural language captions each describing an action occurring during the event of interest ([0068] teaches the report built from the natural language descriptions of the events); and
exporting the investigative report for use in investigating the event of interest ([0073], [0093], and [0078] teach outputting the report as a file transmitted to a client for surveillance professionals reviewing events of interest).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores to add the teachings of Choe as disclosed above to improve the accuracy of video surveillance (Choe [0077]).
Regarding claim 21, Flores in view of Choe teaches the method of claim 18. Flores further teaches exporting the investigative report to a first responder, wherein the first responder is a police department, a fire department, an ambulance, or a combination thereof ([0020], and [0002] teach the first responders being law enforcement, fire safety personnel, and ambulances).
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Romelia H. Flores (US 20100231714 A1) (hereinafter Flores) in view of Tae Eun Choe (US 20130129307 A1) (hereinafter Choe), and further in view of Hooman Mahyar (US 10999566 B1) (hereinafter Mahyar):
Regarding claim 20, Flores in view of Choe teaches the method of claim 18. Flores further teaches wherein the video includes a video track and a sound track ([0022] teaches the camera feed includes audio),
Flores does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Choe further teaches wherein the one or more captions include: a caption describing the event of interest in the video track ([0073] teaches captions describing the events shown in the video images);
Choe does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Mahyar teaches a caption describing the event of interest in the sound track ([Col 3: lines 15- 19], [Col 3: lines 50- 58], and [Col 9: lines 7-12] teach generating a text description of events recognized in the audio).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video operations center (VOC) monitoring for emergency incidents as disclosed above by Flores in view of Choe to further add the teachings of Mahyar as disclosed above to improve user understanding of the events (Mahyar [Col 2: Line 15-16]).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHMOUD KAMAL ABOUZAHRA whose telephone number is (703)756-1694. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jamie Atala can be reached at (571) 272-7384. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/MAHMOUD KAMAL ABOUZAHRA/ Examiner, Art Unit 2486
/JAMIE J ATALA/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2486
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