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 .
Remarks
This office action is responsive to the amendment filed on 02/16/2026.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are pending in the application.
Independent claim(s) 1, 11, 20 was/were amended.
Dependent claim(s) 2, 6, 12, 16 was/were amended.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's argument(s), regarding the amended portion(s) as recited in independent claim 1 (and similarly in independent claim(s) 11, 20), filed 02/16/2026, have/has been fully considered and is/are persuasive. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made, adding/using Banerjee to be relied upon for the aforementioned amended portion(s). To note, applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this office action.
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, 11, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (US 2021/0286977 A1) in view of Benerjee et al. (US 2019/0377940 A1).
In regards to claim 1, Chen teaches a method for generating a three-dimensional image, comprising:
receiving a first image presenting a target object at a first viewing angle, wherein the first image is a two-dimensional image (e.g. [0120]-[0121],Fig.4: in step 401, the computer device obtains a 2D face image (first image); Examiner’s note: where the face (target object) is viewed to be at a first viewing angle);
determining a transformed image of the first image at a target viewing angle, wherein the target viewing angle is the same as or different from the first viewing angle (e.g. [0142]: in a possible implementation, in this method, the computer device may further pre-process the 2D face image; for example, the computer device may perform face detection on the 2D face image, and may crop, when the 2D face image includes a plurality of faces, the 2D face image into a plurality of face images corresponding to the plurality of faces, to perform the foregoing operations of generating the 3D face model for each face image; Examiner’s note: in this instance, the “transformed image” corresponds to the 2D face image (first image) after pre-processing; the target viewing angle is similar to the first viewing angle because the target face left in the image after cropping will appear at a similar viewing angle);
generating a first representation using a first feature extraction layer corresponding to the first viewing angle in an encoder based on the transformed image (e.g [0127]-[0128],Fig.4: in step 403, the computer device inputs the 2D face image into the face model generation model, so that the face model generation model extracts global features and local features of the 2D face image; see also [0134]: Also, please see [0134]: the process of extracting the global features may be as follows: the face model generation model in the computer device encodes the 2D face image based on a plurality of convolutional layers of an encoder to obtain global feature vectors of the 2D face image; Examiner’s note: in this instance, the first representation corresponds to encoded 2D face image with encoded global or local features; the first feature extraction layer corresponds to the global or local features extracted using the encoder); and
generating a second image based on the first representation, wherein the second image is a three-dimensional image and presents the target object at the target viewing angle (e.g. [0139]-[0140],Fig.4: in step 405, the face model generation model in the computer device outputs a 3D face model (second image) corresponding to the 2D face image based on the 3D face model parameter; Examiner’s note: based upon the inputted 2D face image (after pre-processing) at the target viewing angle; Fig.3 on the right side shows that the generated second image (3D face model that is rendered) presents the target object (face) at the target viewing angle (which is an angle similar to the first viewing angle) as shown on the left side in Fig.3; see also [0115]: 3D face model may be reconstructed based on fitted 3DMM parameters, and then the 3D face model is rendered into a 2D picture by using the posture and illumination parameters),
but does not explicitly teach the method,
wherein determining the transformed image of the first image at the target viewing angle comprises generating a plurality of transformed images based on the first image utilizing a transformation group including at least one of (i) one or more rotation transformations and (ii) one or more reflection transformations, the transformed image of the first image being determined based on the plurality of transformed images.
However, Banerjee teaches a method,
wherein determining the transformed image of the first image at the target viewing angle comprises generating a plurality of transformed images based on the first image utilizing a transformation group including at least one of (i) one or more rotation transformations and (ii) one or more reflection transformations, the transformed image of the first image being determined based on the plurality of transformed images (e.g. [0040]: configured to extract annotated portions of images 124 and to rotate the extracted portions at a plurality of rotation angles to generate rotated image samples; the rotated image samples are then combined with a plurality of backgrounds to generate the plurality of positive image samples; [0043]: detect one or more persons present in the space using the curated positive and negative image samples; see also [0047]-[0048],Fig.2: as can be seen, the sample images such as image 202 may contain one or more people that may be duly annotated by rectangles marking their location; provide rotational invariance to generate a set of rotated samples by extracting the annotated rectangle and performing planar rotation at a number of angles such as about 8 to 12 variations covering the complete 360 degrees; images 206 to 216 represent images with foreground blended to the background 204 in different angles; Examiner’s note: this shows the generation of a plurality of transformed images; transformed images used for detection, where a transformed image of the plurality can be viewed as determined for comparison).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings/combination of Chen to generate a plurality of transformation images, in the same conventional manner as taught by Banerjee as both deal with image processing of a single image representing a subject. The motivation to combine the two would be that it would allow the generation of a plurality of transformed images of the subject at a plurality of viewing angles.
In regards to device claim 11 and product claim 20, claim(s) 11, 20 recite(s) limitations that is/are similar in scope to the limitations recited in claim 1. Therefore, claim(s) 11, 20 is/are subject to rejections under the same rationale as applied hereinabove for claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 2-10, 12-19 is/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. To note, claim 3 is included as it depends on claim 2, claims 5-10 are included as they depend on claim 4, claim 13 is included as it depends on claim 12, and claims 15-19 are included as they depend on claim 14.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claim(s) 2-10, 12-19 was/were carefully reviewed and a search with regards to independent claim(s) 1, 11 has been made. Accordingly, those claim(s) are believed to be distinct from the prior art searched.
Regarding claim(s) 2-3, 12-13 (and specifically independent claim(s) 1, 11), the prior art search was found to neither anticipate nor suggest the method of claim 1/device of claim 11, wherein determining the transformed image of the first image further comprises: generating the plurality of transformed images based on the first image and with the transformation group comprising a dihedral group, wherein the dihedral group comprises rotation transformations at a plurality of angles and reflection transformations at a plurality of angles; determining a plurality of weights corresponding to the plurality of transformed images based on the target viewing angle; and determining the transformed image based on the plurality of transformed images and the plurality of weights (emphasis added).
Regarding claim(s) 4-10, 14-19 (and specifically independent claim(s) 1, 11), the prior art search was found to neither anticipate nor suggest the method of claim 1/device of claim 1, wherein the encoder further comprises a second feature extraction layer corresponding to a second viewing angle, a third feature extraction layer corresponding to a third viewing angle, and a fourth feature extraction layer corresponding to a fourth viewing angle, wherein the first viewing angle, the second viewing angle, the third viewing angle, and the fourth viewing angle are different from one another (emphasis added).
It is viewed that any of the previously cited references or any of the prior art searched, in part or in whole, cannot be combined in such a way to render the claimed invention obvious.
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 JED-JUSTIN IMPERIAL whose telephone number is (571)270-5807. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday, 9am - 6pm.
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/JED-JUSTIN IMPERIAL/Examiner, Art Unit 2616
/DANIEL F HAJNIK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2616
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