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 .
Specification Objections
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
In paragraph 102, line 1, “block 1408” does not exist in any of the figures and should read “block 1412”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b). Claim 7 recites the limitation "the geometric model" in the last line of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends. Claim 9 should not depend from claim 10. Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
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, 2, 8 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yates (US 20140254934 A1), in further view of Singhal et al. (US 20140254934 A1).
Consider claim 1, Yates teaches a method for classifying apparel in images, the method comprising (See Abstract; “Methods are disclosed for detecting user-specific apparel fit”) receiving at a computing device (¶ 06; a user computing device) an image depicting an apparel and a body (See Abstract; “Digital images of a user are obtained that depict one or more portions of the user’s body. Apparel fit information is obtained specific to the user”) at a processor connected to the computing device segmenting the image into at least a body region corresponding to the body and an apparel region corresponding to the apparel item (¶ 13; the digital imaging method comprises obtaining, by one or more processors, one or more digital images of the user. Each of the one or more digital images may depict one or more portions of the user’s body. The digital imaging method further comprises obtaining, by the one or more processors, apparel fit information specific to the user.”);
Yates is silent on the remaining limitations of claim 1. However, Singhal discloses retrieving a plurality of reference shapes from memory at the computing device; at the processor, computing a matching score for each of the reference shapes, the matching score representing a comparison of the respective reference shape to the body region and the apparel region; and at the processor, selecting one of the reference shapes based on a comparison of the matching scores. (¶ 068; Feature matching techniques can be used to determine if enough features of the article of clothing in an uploaded image matches the article of clothing in another image that is known to have the correct article of clothing.)
The Yates reference teaches classifying apparel in images depicting an apparel item and a body as described above, but fails to teach the limitation of computing a matching score for each of the reference shapes. In a similar field of endeavor, Singhal et al. teaches feature matching techniques. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the feature-matching techniques of Singhal et al. into the apparel classification system of Yates in order to improve the accuracy and robustness of classifying apparel shapes.
Regarding Claim 2, Yates teaches differentiating colors in the image (¶ 063, lines 1-7; Each pixel may be at a specific location within the image).
Regarding Claim 8, Yates teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions for classifying images (¶ 015; non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions for detecting user-specific apparel fit is disclosed).
The proposed teaching from Yates presented in Claim 2, apply to Claim 9 and are incorporated herein by reference.
Claim 15 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yates and Singhal et al., in further view of Vidal et al. (US 20150363660 A1).
Regarding claim 15, Yates and Singhal teach the limitations of claim 1 as described above. However, they fail to teach the remaining limitations of Claim 15. Vidal et al., in view of Yates and Singhal, teaches these limitations as follows; a method for querying images comprising: receiving a plurality of product images at a server (¶ 33; “User client device associated with the user receives a query comprising a query image”), classifying the product images according to the method of claim 1; at the server, receiving a query image from a user device via a network; classifying the query image according to the method of claim 1; comparing the query image to the product images and computing a plurality of relevance scores based on the comparison; comparing the relevance scores; and transmitting a portion of the product images to a user device based on the comparison of the relevance scores. (¶ 35; “determines one or more search images from the server database that are similar to the query image, and ranks the identified searched images based on relevance.”)
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art at the time the invention was filed to combine Vidal with Yates and Singhal as described above to achieve the known and expected uses and benefits of improving the user experience by processing query image at the server, as described by Vidal.
The proposed combination as well as the motivation for combining the Yates and Singhal et al. references with Vidal et al. reference in the rejection of claim 15 will also apply to claim 16 and are incorporated herein by reference.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-7 and 10-14 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAVEN S. JONES whose telephone number is (571)272-7759. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 7:00a.m. - 5:00p.m..
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/RAVEN SIMONE JONES/Examiner, Art Unit 2665
/Stephen R Koziol/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2665