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 .
Claim Objections
Claims 4 and 6 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 4 and 6 disclose “Error! Reference source not found.” It is recommended to the Applicant; for example, "4. The method of claim Error! Reference source not found" should be "4. The method of claim 1..." and "6. The method of claim Error! Reference source not found" should be "6. The method of claim 1..."
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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 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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-6 and 8-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by NYSTRÖM et al. (US 2022/0122294, hereinafter NYSTRÖM).
Regarding claim 1, NYSTRÖM discloses
A computer-implemented method of controlling a computing hardware accelerator (paragraph [0085]: GPU) in a movable camera (paragraph [0033]: PTZ camera), the method comprising:
acquiring images from the movable camera (paragraph [0037]: images captured by an image sensor);
obtaining an indication of a physical state of the movable camera, indicating whether the movable camera is in a moving state or in a still state (paragraph [0073]: when encoding pixel blocks within the privacy mask area, the encoder module 414 will use the information 412 about camera movement, received via the movement input module 410, to determine if the camera is moving or not);
allocating exclusive access to the computing hardware accelerator (paragraph [0085]: the instructions may be executed by any kind of processor, e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU)), wherein:
if the movable camera is in the moving state, allocating the computing hardware accelerator to a first processing workload related to the acquired images and associated with the moving state (Fig. 7, paragraph [0083]: If, on the other hand, the movement is above the threshold, the encoding of pixel blocks within the privacy mask area is adapted according to one of the variants illustrated in FIGS. 6A-B, producing pixel blocks in the privacy mask area with a motion vector set according to the movement of the camera, in other words equal to the movement of the camera, and with a zero residual); and
if the movable camera is in the still state, allocating the computing hardware accelerator to a second processing workload related to the acquired images and associated with the still state (Fig. 7, paragraph [0079]: in step 712, this movement is compared to a threshold. If the movement is below the threshold, the method proceeds to step 714, and no adaptation of the encoding according to the present teachings based on the camera movement is performed).
Regarding 14 referring to claim 1, NYSTRÖM discloses A non-transitory computer readable recording medium comprising a computer program having instructions which, when executed by a computing device or computing system, cause the computing device or computing system to carry out a method of controlling a computing hardware accelerator in a movable camera, the method comprising … (paragraph [0085]: The method may be carried out by executing instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium. The instructions may be executed by any kind of processor, e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU)).
Regarding 15 referring to claim 1, NYSTRÖM discloses A camera system, comprising: a movable camera (paragraph [0033]: PTZ camera); a computing hardware accelerator; and a central processing unit, wherein the central processing unit is configured to: … (paragraph [0085]: The instructions may be executed by any kind of processor, e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU)).
Regarding claim 2, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the first processing workload comprises computation of graphics in the images acquired by the movable camera (Fig. 7, paragraph [0083]: If, on the other hand, the movement is above the threshold, the encoding of pixel blocks within the privacy mask area is adapted according to one of the variants illustrated in FIGS. 6A-B, producing pixel blocks in the privacy mask area with a motion vector set according to the movement of the camera, in other words equal to the movement of the camera, and with a zero residual).
Regarding claim 3, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the first processing workload comprises computation of one or more privacy masks (Fig. 7, paragraph [0083]: If, on the other hand, the movement is above the threshold, the encoding of pixel blocks within the privacy mask area is adapted according to one of the variants illustrated in FIGS. 6A-B, producing pixel blocks in the privacy mask area with a motion vector set according to the movement of the camera, in other words equal to the movement of the camera, and with a zero residual) in the images acquired by the movable camera (paragraph [0037]: images captured by an image sensor).
Regarding claim 4, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the computation of one or more privacy masks comprises dynamically computing an area and/or a selection of pixels and/or polygons to be blurred and/or covered and/or anonymized (paragraph [0041]: a privacy mask module arranged to receive information representative of a privacy mask area in which the privacy mask is to be applied to the current image, and perform pixelation of the privacy mask area) in the images acquired by the movable camera (paragraph [0037]: images captured by an image sensor).
Regarding claim 5, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the second processing workload comprises analytics computations (paragraph [0056]: In the scene 104, there is a building 106, having windows 108. A person 110 is also present in the image; paragraph [0061]: The encoding system 400 receives information 402 representative of pixels of the image 100. The information 402 is received from the image sensor 304, via the IPP 306, in a receiving module 404; Fig. 7, paragraph [0079]: in step 712, this movement is compared to a threshold. If the movement is below the threshold, the method proceeds to step 714, and no adaptation of the encoding according to the present teachings based on the camera movement is performed. The encoding proceeds in a normal fashion, and in step 718, an encoded image is output) related to the images acquired by the movable camera (paragraph [0037]: images captured by an image sensor).
Regarding claim 6, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the analytics computations comprise computations related to object detection in the images (paragraph [0056]: In the scene 104, there is a building 106, having windows 108. A person 110 is also present in the image; paragraph [0061]: The encoding system 400 receives information 402 representative of pixels of the image 100. The information 402 is received from the image sensor 304, via the IPP 306, in a receiving module 404; Fig. 7, paragraph [0079]: in step 712, this movement is compared to a threshold. If the movement is below the threshold, the method proceeds to step 714, and no adaptation of the encoding according to the present teachings based on the camera movement is performed. The encoding proceeds in a normal fashion, and in step 718, an encoded image is output) acquired by the movable camera (paragraph [0037]: images captured by an image sensor).
Regarding claim 8, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the second processing workload (Fig. 7, paragraph [0079]: in step 712, this movement is compared to a threshold. If the movement is below the threshold, the method proceeds to step 714, and no adaptation of the encoding according to the present teachings based on the camera movement is performed) comprises applying a machine learning model trained to perform a specific image and/or video analysis workload (paragraph [0067]: Block based hybrid codecs, such as a H.264, H.265 (HEVC), MPEG-4 Part 2, AV1 or VP9 codec, with an encoding structure organizing the video stream in groups of pictures) on the images acquired by the movable camera (paragraph [0037]: images captured by an image sensor).
Regarding claim 9, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the indication of the physical state of the movable camera (paragraph [0079]: in step 712, this movement is compared to a threshold) is obtained continuously or at intervals (paragraph [0068]: It is often the case for a real-time application, such as in surveillance situations).
Regarding claim 10, NYSTRÖM discloses
further comprising the step of automatically switching between allocating the computing hardware accelerator to the first processing workload (Fig. 7, paragraph [0083]: If, on the other hand, the movement is above the threshold, the encoding of pixel blocks within the privacy mask area is adapted; paragraph [0085]: GPU) and allocating the computing hardware accelerator to the second processing workload (Fig. 7, paragraph [0079]: in step 712, this movement is compared to a threshold. If the movement is below the threshold, the method proceeds to step 714, and no adaptation of the encoding according to the present teachings based on the camera movement is performed; paragraph [0085]: GPU) based on the indication of the physical state (paragraph [0068]: It is often the case for a real-time application, such as in surveillance situations; paragraph [0079]: in step 712, this movement is compared to a threshold).
Regarding claim 11, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the movable camera is a pan-tilt or a pan-tilt-zoom camera (paragraph [0033]: PTZ camera).
Regarding claim 12, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the moving state of the movable camera indicates mechanical movement of the movable camera (paragraph [0033]: The motor may be in the form of a step-motor which is a common choice for cameras with a movable field of view, such as a PT- or PTZ-camera, and in that case the number of steps moved by the motor may be used as an indication of the movement of the image sensor).
Regarding claim 13, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the indication of the physical state further comprises information about a movement direction and/or movement speed of the movable camera, and wherein the first processing workload or the second processing workload is adapted based on the movement direction and/or movement speed (paragraph [0019]: The term “set equal to movement of the image sensor” may be interpreted as the motion vector being set to the amount and direction of movement, as measured in pixels, or other units related to the image, that corresponds to the movement of the image sensor between the capture of the current image and the reference image).
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 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 of this title, 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 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over NYSTRÖM et al. (US 2022/0122294 in view of Korneliussen et al. (US 2016/0219241 hereinafter Korneliussen).
Regarding claim 7, NYSTRÖM discloses
wherein the second processing workload comprises computations related to augmented reality content to be added to the images acquired by the movable camera
NYSTRÖM does not disclose wherein the second processing workload comprises computations related to augmented reality content to be added to the images acquired by the movable camera. Korneliussen discloses wherein the second processing workload comprises computations related to augmented reality content to be added to the images acquired by the movable camera (paragraph [0028]: the receiver is a VR/AR device. In a further embodiment, the method further comprises self-learning a region of interest from view directions of the VR/AR receiver; and transmitting a high-resolution video of the region of interest, wherein the augmented video is created by merging the high-resolution video of the region of interest with the background; paragraph [0032]: the VR/AR receiver is adapted to self-learn regions of interest from its view directions, and wherein the one or more PTZ cameras are adapted to capture high-resolution videos of the regions of interest; paragraph [0066]: the outer encoder is implemented in software for GPU or CPU cores, and the core encoder is implemented using hardware accelerators for video encoding found in such SoCs; paragraph [0073]: High-resolution videos are captured by these moving PTZ cameras for particular regions of interest (“ROI”), and merged with a background according to one embodiment. The background is a still image in this embodiment and rendered at a higher resolution than the resolution of ROI videos, thereby enhancing the VR/AR experience).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify NYSTRÖM’s encoding if movement is below the threshold by Korneliussen’s creating VR/AR by merging high-resolution video captured by these moving PTZ cameras with the still image background, thereby resulting in creating VR/AR by merging high-resolution video captured by these moving PTZ cameras with the still image background if movement is below the threshold. The motivation would have been to enhance the VR/AR experience (Korneliussen paragraph [0073]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Kim et al. (US 2023/0056672) discloses “GPU” (paragraph [0025]) and “The image data source 130 may be a camera, e.g., mounted on a moving object such as car, wall, pole, or installed in a mobile device, configured to capture image data 132 … For privacy concerns, faces and license plates may be blurred from the image data 132 for certain annotation tasks” (paragraph [0033]).
Yao et al. (US 2019/0138822) discloses “pan-tilt-zoom camera” (paragraph [0039]), “GPU” (paragraph [0049]), and “The motion state may include a static state or a moving state” (paragraph [0065]).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SISLEY N. KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-7832. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 11:30AM -7:30PM.
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/SISLEY N KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2196 01/31/2026