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 Interpretation
During patent examination, pending claims must be “given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification.” MPEP 2111; See also, MPEP 2173.02. Limitations appearing in the specification but not recited in the claim are not read into the claim. In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1404-05, 162 USPQ 541, 550-551 (CCPA 1969). See also, In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321-22, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (“During patent examination the pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow”). The reason is simply that during patent prosecution when claims can be amended, ambiguities should be recognized, scope and breadth of language explored, and clarification imposed. An essential purpose of patent examination is to fashion claims that are precise, clear, correct, and unambiguous. Only in this way can uncertainties of claim scope be removed, as much as possible, during the administrative process.
The Examiner respectfully requests of the Applicant in preparing responses, to consider fully the entirety of the reference(s) as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention. It is noted, REFERENCES ARE RELEVANT AS PRIOR ART FOR ALL THEY CONTAIN.
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)(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.
Claim(s) 1, 13-14, 16, 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0011152 A1 to Ikezawa.
With regards to claim 1, Ikezawa discloses:
1. An information processing device comprising:
an image search unit that searches for an image corresponding to designated time and date information among a plurality of images that is stored and is associated with imaging times (see, Fig. 3, and detailed description, including, images satisfying the search conditions entered in the specific day specification area 15, the day-of-week specification area 16, the holiday specification area 17, and the time specification area 18 are retrieved from the search target images, para. 0055); and
a display control unit that displays, on a display unit, an image based on a result of the search performed by the image search unit (see, Fig. 4A, 4B, and detailed description, including, there is shown a display of the display area 4 that appears when the thumbnail display mode is specified and ALL is specified for the year and month specification. The display area 4 shows image IDs and capturing dates and times together with thumbnails, para. 0057-0058).
With regards to claim 13, Ikezawa discloses:
13. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the image search unit searches for an image corresponding to time and date information designated by an external device (see, Fig, 11, and detailed description, including, The communication section 33 is an interface for sending or receiving information such as an image file to or from an external device (not shown) through communications. The image DB 34 stores image data. The temporary memory 35 is a buffer memory for temporarily storing information necessary for image display processing. The image management DB 36 stores image management information. The processing section 37 integrally controls the operation of the image display device 30. The calendar DB 38 records information on the calendar such as days of week and holidays, para. 0075).
With regards to claim 14, Ikezawa discloses:
14. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
information indicating an imaging condition is associated with the image and is stored in the image (see, detailed description, including, (see, Fig. 3, and detailed description, including, images satisfying the search conditions entered in the specific day specification area 15, the day-of-week specification area 16, the holiday specification area 17, and the time specification area 18 are retrieved from the search target images, para. 0055)(search conditions are interpreted to include the imaging conditions that they seek to retrieve), and
the image search unit determines that one of images having the same imaging condition as the imaging condition associated with the image corresponding to the
designated time and date information is the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, (see, Fig. 4A, 4B, and detailed description, including, there is shown a display of the display area 4 that appears when the thumbnail display mode is specified and ALL is specified for the year and month specification. The display area 4 shows image IDs and capturing dates and times together with thumbnails, para. 0057-0058)(search conditions are interpreted to include the same imaging conditions that they seek to retrieve).
With regards to claim 16, Ikezawa discloses:
16. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the image search unit searches for an image by a different method, depending on an input accuracy of the designated time and date information (see, detailed description, including Background, it has required complex search operations such as entering a complicated search formula or performing a search operation more than once in the case of search with a combination of a plurality of conditions, para. 0005).
With regards to claim 18, Ikezawa discloses:
18. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the display control unit displays, on the display unit, a time and date entry image for prompting a user to input the time and date information by a touch operation (see, Fig. 3, and detailed description, including, images satisfying the search conditions entered in the specific day specification area 15, the day-of-week specification area 16, the holiday specification area 17, and the time specification area 18 are retrieved from the search target images, para. 0055).
With regard to claim 19, claim 19 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 1 (a device/apparatus claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above.
With regard to claim 20, claim 20 (a program product claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 1 (a device/apparatus claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth 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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 2, 3-12, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ikezawa in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0012297 A1 to Basu et al. (hereinafter Basu).
With regards to claim 2, Ikezawa discloses:
2. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein,
in a case where there is a plurality of images associated with an imaging time that matches the designated time and date information (see, as above, claim 1, and (see, Fig. 3, and detailed description, including, images satisfying the search conditions entered in the specific day specification area 15, the day-of-week specification area 16, the holiday specification area 17, para. 0055),
[the image search unit determines that an image having an earliest imaging time among the plurality of associated images is the result of the search].
Basu discloses:
the image search unit determines that an image having an earliest imaging time among the plurality of associated images is the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, For each image-landing page pair, the retrieval engine 135 determines a pair numeric embedding which is a numeric representation of the image-landing page pair in an embedding space. In some implementations, the system can access an index database 122 that associates image-landing page pairs with corresponding previously generated pair numeric embeddings, para. 0025) and Upon receiving the image search query, the image search system identifies initial image-landing page pairs (304). For example, the system can identify the initial image-landing page pairs from the pairs indexed in a search engine index database based on signals that measure the quality of the pairs, the relevance of the pairs to the search query, or both (initial image-landing pairs is interpreted to include the earliest, para. 0058).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, including, the image search unit determines that an image having an earliest imaging time among the plurality of associated images is the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, For each image-landing page pair, the retrieval engine 135 determines a pair numeric embedding which is a numeric representation of the image-landing page pair in an embedding space. In some implementations, the system can access an index database 122 that associates image-landing page pairs with corresponding previously generated pair numeric embeddings, para. 0025) and Upon receiving the image search query, the image search system identifies initial image-landing page pairs (304). For example, the system can identify the initial image-landing page pairs from the pairs indexed in a search engine index database based on signals that measure the quality of the pairs, the relevance of the pairs to the search query, or both (initial image-landing pairs is interpreted to include the earliest, para. 0058).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art1.
With regards to claim 3, Ikezawa fails to explicitly disclose:
3. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein,
in a case where there are no images associated with an imaging time that matches the designated time and date information,
the image search unit determines that an image having an imaging time closest to the designated time and date information is the result of the search.
Basu discloses:
in a case where there are no images associated with an imaging time that matches the designated time and date information (see, detailed description, including, The subset of the initial image-landing page pairs have pair numeric embeddings that are closest to the query numeric embeddings of the image search query in the embedding space, para. 0062),
the image search unit determines that an image having an imaging time closest to the designated time and date information is the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, landing page features 208 can include one or more of text from a title of the landing page, salient terms that appear on the landing page, text from a URL of the landing page and data identifying a domain of the landing page. Additionally, examples of features extracted from the landing page can include the date the page was first crawled or updated, data characterizing the author of the landing page, the language of the landing page, keywords representing the content of the landing page, features of the links to the image and landing page such as the anchor text or source page for the links, features that describe the context of the image in the landing page and so on, para. 0047).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, including, in a case where there are no images associated with an imaging time that matches the designated time and date information (see, detailed description, including, The subset of the initial image-landing page pairs have pair numeric embeddings that are closest to the query numeric embeddings of the image search query in the embedding space, para. 0062),
the image search unit determines that an image having an imaging time closest to the designated time and date information is the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, landing page features 208 can include one or more of text from a title of the landing page, salient terms that appear on the landing page, text from a URL of the landing page and data identifying a domain of the landing page. Additionally, examples of features extracted from the landing page can include the date the page was first crawled or updated, data characterizing the author of the landing page, the language of the landing page, keywords representing the content of the landing page, features of the links to the image and landing page such as the anchor text or source page for the links, features that describe the context of the image in the landing page and so on, para. 0047).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art2.
With regards to claim 4, Ikezawa fails to explicitly disclose:
4. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the display control unit
displays, on the display unit, a time and date entry image for prompting a user to input the time and date information, and
displays the time and date entry image, when displaying an image retrieved by the image search unit.
Basu discloses:
the display control unit
displays, on the display unit, a time and date entry image for prompting a user to input the time and date information (see, detailed description, including, Additionally, examples of features extracted from the landing page can include the date the page was first crawled or updated, data characterizing the author of the landing page, the language of the landing page, keywords representing the content of the landing page, para. 0047), and
displays the time and date entry image, when displaying an image retrieved by the image search unit (see, as above, and detailed description, including, examples of features extracted from the landing page can include the date the page was first crawled or updated, data characterizing the author of the landing page, the language of the landing page, keywords representing the content of the landing page, para. 0047).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, including, the display control unit
displays, on the display unit, a time and date entry image for prompting a user to input the time and date information (see, detailed description, including, Additionally, examples of features extracted from the landing page can include the date the page was first crawled or updated, data characterizing the author of the landing page, the language of the landing page, keywords representing the content of the landing page, para. 0047), and
displays the time and date entry image, when displaying an image retrieved by the image search unit (see, as above, and detailed description, including, examples of features extracted from the landing page can include the date the page was first crawled or updated, data characterizing the author of the landing page, the language of the landing page, keywords representing the content of the landing page, para. 0047).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art3.
With regards to claim 5, Ikezawa fails to explicitly disclose:
5. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the display control unit
displays, on the display unit, a time and date entry image for prompting a user to input the time and date information, and
displays, in the time and date entry image, the imaging time associated with the image displayed on the display unit.
Basu discloses:
the display control unit
displays, on the display unit, a time and date entry image for prompting a user to input the time and date information (see, detailed description, including, Additionally, examples of features extracted from the landing page can include the date the page was first crawled or updated, data characterizing the author of the landing page, the language of the landing page, keywords representing the content of the landing page, para. 0047), and
displays the time and date entry image, when displaying an image retrieved by the image search unit (see, as above, and detailed description, including, examples of features extracted from the landing page can include the date the page was first crawled or updated, data characterizing the author of the landing page, the language of the landing page, keywords representing the content of the landing page, para. 0047).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, the display control unit
displays, on the display unit, a time and date entry image for prompting a user to input the time and date information (see, detailed description, including, Additionally, examples of features extracted from the landing page can include the date the page was first crawled or updated, data characterizing the author of the landing page, the language of the landing page, keywords representing the content of the landing page, para. 0047), and
displays, in the time and date entry image, the imaging time associated with the image displayed on the display unit (see, detailed description, including, examples of features extracted from the landing page can include the date the page was first crawled or updated, data characterizing the author of the landing page, the language of the landing page, keywords representing the content of the landing page, para. 0047).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art4.
With regards to claim 6, Ikezawa fails to explicitly disclose:
6. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the display control unit
displays, on the display unit, a difference time and date entry image for prompting an input of a difference from the imaging time associated with the
image displayed on the display unit, and
displays the difference time and date entry image when displaying an image retrieved by the image search unit.
Basu discloses:
the display control unit
displays, on the display unit, a difference time and date entry image for prompting an input of a difference from the imaging time associated with the
image displayed on the display unit See, Fig. 3, items 312, 314, 316, and detailed description, including, The subset of the initial image-landing page pairs have pair numeric embeddings that are closest to the query numeric embeddings of the image search query in the embedding space, para. 0062), and
displays the difference time and date entry image when displaying an image retrieved by the image search unit (see, detailed description, including, The system generates an image search results presentation that shows the image search results ordered according to the ranking (316) and provides the image search results presentation for presentation (318) by sending the search result presentation through a network to the user device from which the image search query was received in a form that can be presented to a user, para. 0067).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, the display control unit including, the display control unit, and
displays, on the display unit, a difference time and date entry image for prompting an input of a difference from the imaging time associated with the
image displayed on the display unit See, Fig. 3, items 312, 314, 316, and detailed description, including, The subset of the initial image-landing page pairs have pair numeric embeddings that are closest to the query numeric embeddings of the image search query in the embedding space, para. 0062), and
displays the difference time and date entry image when displaying an image retrieved by the image search unit (see, detailed description, including, The system generates an image search results presentation that shows the image search results ordered according to the ranking (316) and provides the image search results presentation for presentation (318) by sending the search result presentation through a network to the user device from which the image search query was received in a form that can be presented to a user, para. 0067).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art5.
With regards to claim 7, Ikezawa discloses:
7. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the plurality of images includes a still image and a moving image (see, detailed description, including, image-landing page pairs (304) para. 0058), and,
in a case where the image corresponding to the designated time and date information is the moving image (see, Fig. 3, and detailed description, including, images satisfying the search conditions entered in the specific day specification area 15, the day-of-week specification area 16, the holiday specification area 17, and the time specification area 18 are retrieved from the search target images, para. 0055),
[the display control unit displays, on the display unit, a first frame in the moving image.]
Basu discloses:
the display control unit displays, on the display unit, a first frame in the moving image (see, detailed description, including, The first candidate image search results generally include much fewer candidates than the initial image search results. For example, the number of first candidate image search results can be limited to less than on the order of one hundred results. This is much fewer than the initial image search results, which can be thousands or millions of image search results, and is interpreted to include the first candidate image in the moving image, para. 0064).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, including, the display control unit
displays, on the display unit, a first frame in the moving image (see, detailed description, including, The first candidate image search results generally include much fewer candidates than the initial image search results. For example, the number of first candidate image search results can be limited to less than on the order of one hundred results. This is much fewer than the initial image search results, which can be thousands or millions of image search results, and is interpreted to include the first candidate image in the moving image, para. 0064).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art6.
With regards to claim 8, Ikezawa discloses:
8. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the plurality of images includes a still image and a moving image (see, detailed description, including, image-landing page pairs (304) para. 0058), and,
in a case where the image corresponding to the designated time and date information is the moving image (see, Fig. 3, and detailed description, including, images satisfying the search conditions entered in the specific day specification area 15, the day-of-week specification area 16, the holiday specification area 17, and the time specification area 18 are retrieved from the search target images, para. 0055),
[the display control unit displays a frame in the moving image on the display unit, a time of the frame matching the designated time and date information].
Basu discloses:
the display control unit displays a frame in the moving image on the display unit, a time of the frame matching the designated time and date information (see, detailed description, including, The image features 206 can also include data identifying a domain of an image, and/or text from a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of an image, e.g., unigrams or bigrams. The text features of an image and the text feature from a search query both include unigrams or bigrams. Therefore, both of them can be later mapped to a same embedding space through the embedding neural network 200. The corresponding embedding representations of relevant text features are closer to each other in the embedding space than those of the less relevant or irrelevant text features, para. 0046).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, including, the display control unit displays a frame in the moving image on the display unit, a time of the frame matching the designated time and date information (see, detailed description, including, The image features 206 can also include data identifying a domain of an image, and/or text from a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of an image, e.g., unigrams or bigrams. The text features of an image and the text feature from a search query both include unigrams or bigrams. Therefore, both of them can be later mapped to a same embedding space through the embedding neural network 200. The corresponding embedding representations of relevant text features are closer to each other in the embedding space than those of the less relevant or irrelevant text features, para. 0046).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art7.
With regards to claim 9, Ikezawa discloses:
9. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the plurality of images is divided into groups (see, detailed description, including, image-landing page pairs (304) para. 0058), and,
in a case where the image corresponding to the designated time and date information is an image belonging to a group (see, Fig. 3, and detailed description, including, images satisfying the search conditions entered in the specific day specification area 15, the day-of-week specification area 16, the holiday specification area 17, and the time specification area 18 are retrieved from the search target images, para. 0055),
[the image search unit determines that an image having an earliest imaging time among images in the group including the image corresponding to the designated time
and date information is the result of the search].
Basu discloses:
the image search unit determines that an image having an earliest imaging time among images in the group including the image corresponding to the designated time
and date information is the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, For each image-landing page pair, the retrieval engine 135 determines a pair numeric embedding which is a numeric representation of the image-landing page pair in an embedding space. In some implementations, the system can access an index database 122 that associates image-landing page pairs with corresponding previously generated pair numeric embeddings, para. 0025) and Upon receiving the image search query, the image search system identifies initial image-landing page pairs (304). For example, the system can identify the initial image-landing page pairs from the pairs indexed in a search engine index database based on signals that measure the quality of the pairs, the relevance of the pairs to the search query, or both (initial image-landing pairs is interpreted to include the earliest, para. 0058).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, including, the image search unit determines that an image having an earliest imaging time among images in the group including the image corresponding to the designated time
and date information is the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, For each image-landing page pair, the retrieval engine 135 determines a pair numeric embedding which is a numeric representation of the image-landing page pair in an embedding space. In some implementations, the system can access an index database 122 that associates image-landing page pairs with corresponding previously generated pair numeric embeddings, para. 0025) and Upon receiving the image search query, the image search system identifies initial image-landing page pairs (304). For example, the system can identify the initial image-landing page pairs from the pairs indexed in a search engine index database based on signals that measure the quality of the pairs, the relevance of the pairs to the search query, or both (initial image-landing pairs is interpreted to include the earliest, para. 0058).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art8.
With regards to claim 10, Ikezawa discloses:
10. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the plurality of images includes at least one image belonging to a group, (see, detailed description, including, image-landing page pairs (304) para. 0058), and,
in a case where the image corresponding to the designated time and date information is an image belonging to a group, (see, Fig. 3, and detailed description, including, images satisfying the search conditions entered in the specific day specification area 15, the day-of-week specification area 16, the holiday specification area 17, and the time specification area 18 are retrieved from the search target images, para. 0055)
[the image search unit determines that an image having an imaging time closest to the designated time and date information among images in the group including the
image corresponding to the designated time and date information is the result of the search].
Basu discloses:
the image search unit determines that an image having an imaging time closest to the designated time and date information among images in the group including the
image corresponding to the designated time and date information is the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, The system generates an image search results presentation that shows the image search results ordered according to the ranking (316) and provides the image search results presentation for presentation (318) by sending the search result presentation through a network to the user device from which the image search query was received in a form that can be presented to a user, para. 0067)(ranking is interpreted to include a range).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, including, the image search unit determines that an image having an imaging time closest to the designated time and date information among images in the group including the
image corresponding to the designated time and date information is the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, The system generates an image search results presentation that shows the image search results ordered according to the ranking (316) and provides the image search results presentation for presentation (318) by sending the search result presentation through a network to the user device from which the image search query was received in a form that can be presented to a user, para. 0067)(ranking is interpreted to include a range).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art9.
With regards to claim 11, Ikezawa discloses:
11. The information processing device according to claim 1, wherein
the plurality of images includes at least one image belonging to a group (see, detailed description, including, image-landing page pairs (304) para. 0058), and,
in a case where the image corresponding to the designated time and date information is an image belonging to a group (see, Fig. 3, and detailed description, including, images satisfying the search conditions entered in the specific day specification area 15, the day-of-week specification area 16, the holiday specification area 17, and the time specification area 18 are retrieved from the search target images, para. 0055),
[the image search unit determines that an image having an earliest imaging time and an image having an imaging time closest to the designated time and date
information among images in the group including the image corresponding to the designated time and date information are the result of the search].
Basu discloses:
the image search unit determines that an image having an earliest imaging time and an image having an imaging time closest to the designated time and date
information among images in the group including the image corresponding to the designated time and date information are the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, For each image-landing page pair, the retrieval engine 135 determines a pair numeric embedding which is a numeric representation of the image-landing page pair in an embedding space. In some implementations, the system can access an index database 122 that associates image-landing page pairs with corresponding previously generated pair numeric embeddings, para. 0025) and Upon receiving the image search query, the image search system identifies initial image-landing page pairs (304). For example, the system can identify the initial image-landing page pairs from the pairs indexed in a search engine index database based on signals that measure the quality of the pairs, the relevance of the pairs to the search query, or both (initial image-landing pairs is interpreted to include the earliest, para. 0058; and see, detailed description, including, The subset of the initial image-landing page pairs have pair numeric embeddings that are closest to the query numeric embeddings of the image search query in the embedding space, para. 0062-0063).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, including, the image search unit determines that an image having an earliest imaging time and an image having an imaging time closest to the designated time and date information among images in the group including the image corresponding to the designated time and date information are the result of the search (see, detailed description, including, For each image-landing page pair, the retrieval engine 135 determines a pair numeric embedding which is a numeric representation of the image-landing page pair in an embedding space. In some implementations, the system can access an index database 122 that associates image-landing page pairs with corresponding previously generated pair numeric embeddings, para. 0025) and Upon receiving the image search query, the image search system identifies initial image-landing page pairs (304). For example, the system can identify the initial image-landing page pairs from the pairs indexed in a search engine index database based on signals that measure the quality of the pairs, the relevance of the pairs to the search query, or both (initial image-landing pairs is interpreted to include the earliest, para. 0058; and see, detailed description, including, The subset of the initial image-landing page pairs have pair numeric embeddings that are closest to the query numeric embeddings of the image search query in the embedding space, para. 0062-0063).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art10.
With regards to claim 12, Ikezawa fails to explicitly disclose:
12. The information processing device according to claim 11, wherein
the display control unit displays the image having the imaging time closest to the designated time and date information as a main image, and displays the image
having the earliest imaging time as a sub image.
Basu discloses:
the display control unit displays the image having the imaging time closest to the designated time and date information as a main image, and displays the image having the earliest imaging time as a sub image (see, detailed description, including, The subset of the initial image-landing page pairs have pair numeric embeddings that are closest to the query numeric embeddings of the image search query in the embedding space. For example, among the initial image-landing page pairs, top K image-landing page pairs that have embedding representations closest to the embedding representation of the search query can be selected using nearest neighbor search, para. 0062).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Basu with Ikezawa before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Ikezawa, with Basu, including, the display control unit displays the image having the imaging time closest to the designated time and date information as a main image, and displays the image having the earliest imaging time as a sub image (see, detailed description, including, The subset of the initial image-landing page pairs have pair numeric embeddings that are closest to the query numeric embeddings of the image search query in the embedding space. For example, among the initial image-landing page pairs, top K image-landing page pairs that have embedding representations closest to the embedding representation of the search query can be selected using nearest neighbor search, para. 0062).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art11.
With regard to claim 15, claim 15 (a device claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 9 (a device claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above and search conditions are interpreted to include the same imaging conditions that they seek to retrieve.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 17 is 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.
For convenience, claim 17 is presented below.
17. The information processing device according to claim 16, wherein,
after searching for an image with time and date information of a relatively low input accuracy,
the image search unit searches for an image with time and date information of a relatively high input accuracy, on a basis of a result of the previous search.
A sampling of the prior art made of record and not relied upon and considered pertinent to Applicants’ disclosure includes: U.S. Patent Applicat5ion Publication No. 2010/0145982 A1 to Iwase et al. that discuss: An image processing apparatus includes: a display device; a storage unit configured to store a plurality of image data having information corresponding to a search key; a search key specifying unit configured to specify a search key used for image search; a search unit configured to search and extract image data having information relating to the search key specified by the search key specifying unit from the storage unit; and a display control unit configured to control the image corresponding to image data extracted by the search unit to be displayed on the position corresponding to the degree of association as to the search key on the display screen of the display device.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM D. TITCOMB whose telephone number is (571)270-5190. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30 AM - 6:30 PM (M-F).
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WILLIAM D. TITCOMB
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2178
/WILLIAM D TITCOMB/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2178 2-3-2026
1 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
2 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
3 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
4 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
5 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
6 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
7 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
8 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
9 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
10 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
11 1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).