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 .
In the response to this Office Action, the Examiner respectfully requests that support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line numbers in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the Examiner in prosecuting this application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 10 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because claims 10 and 11 recite a “information processing program”. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to an information processing program typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of “information processing program”, as variations of the term “information processing program” are not necessarily considered to limit a media claim to non-transitory embodiments because many disclosures conflate storage media and signals, particularly when the specification is silent. See MPEP 2111.01. The instant specification does explicitly state that an “information processing program” is non-transitory.
The USPTO recognizes that applicants may have claims directed to “information processing program”, which the USPTO must reject under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering both non-statutory subject matter and statutory subject matter. In an effort to assist the patent community in overcoming a rejection or potential rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in this situation, the USPTO suggests the following approach. A claim drawn to such an information processing program that covers both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § I01 by adding the limitation "non-transitory" to the claim. Cf. Animals -Patentability, 1 077 0ff. Gaz. Pat. Office 24 (April 21, 1987) (suggesting that applicants add the limitation "non-human" to a claim covering a multi-cellular organism to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101). Such an amendment would typically not raise the issue of new matter, even when the specification is silent because the broadest reasonable interpretation relies on the ordinary and customary meaning that includes signals per se. The limited situations in which such an amendment could raise issues of new matter occur, for example, when the specification does not support a non-transitory embodiment because a signal per se is the only viable embodiment such that the amended claim is impermissibly broadened beyond the supporting disclosure. See, e.g., Gentry Gallery, Inc. v. Berkline Corp., 134 F.3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-9 are allowed.
The following is an Examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: Applicant's claims filed on 12/20/2023 constitute the basis for the reasons of allowance as the current prior art of record, considered individually or in combination, fails to teach or reasonably suggest the claimed features of claim 1 structurally and functionally interconnected with other limitations in the manner as cited in the claims and dependent claims. Examiner notes that the current invention as disclosed in the independent claims is allowed in its entirety. Each and every limitation working together in concert realizes the current claimed invention’s novelty. No single limitation alone accomplishes the allowability of the inventive independent claim(s), rather each and every limitation of the claim(s) and their disclosed relationships are integral.
None of the references, either singularly or in combination, teach or fairly suggest an information processing apparatus, comprising: a determination unit that determines that a first object has been detected by a detection model from a first image included in a series of time-series images, the first object having not been detected from one or more second images that are included in the time-series images and chronologically earlier than the first image; a tracking unit that extracts, from the one or more second images, the first object that has been occluded by a second object under a predetermined condition; a labeling unit that adds a label to the first object extracted from the one or more second images; a learning unit that learns the one or more second images including the first object to which the label is added; an update unit that updates the detection model on a basis of a learning result of the learning unit; and a detection unit that detects, from a third image, a third object occluded under the predetermined condition by executing the updated detection model.
Foreign Publication J P2016071534 A to Sabirin et al. discloses a method, apparatus, and program for accurately tracking an object with or without occlusion while respecting the privacy of the object by using only the depth video. An object detection unit 10 detects an object from a video (depth video) frame containing only depth data. The object area setting unit 20 sets a rectangular object area that circumscribes or includes the outline of each object. The ID assignment processing unit 30 compares the position, size, and motion vector of each object between video frames, assigns the same ID by regarding the objects whose similarity exceeds a predetermined threshold as the same object. The occlusion determination unit 41 determines that occlusion has occurred between the objects A and B in which part of the object areas Ka and Kb overlap, and registers an ID unique to the object in the occlusion list 4.
Foreign Publication JP 2013152537 A to Shu et al. discloses a detection unit that detects a target object from an input image, and a determination unit determines whether or not at least a part of the target object is hidden by a foreground object. When it is determined that the target object is hidden by the foreground object, a hiddenness estimation unit estimates a part of the target object which is not hidden by the foreground object, and a correction unit corrects the detection result of the target object by the detection unit on the basis of the estimated result of the hiddenness estimation unit.
However, none of the above teach or fairly suggest the information processing apparatus as claimed.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABHISHEK SARMA whose telephone number is (571)272-9887. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon - Fri 8:00-5:00.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amr Awad can be reached on 571-272-7764. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ABHISHEK SARMA/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2621