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 .
Applicant’s response to the last Office Action dated 12/05/2025, as well as amendments to claims and the specification, filed on 03/05/2026, have been entered and made of record.
In light of Applicant’s amendment of the specification to change the title of the invention to a more descriptive title, the objection of record with respect to the specification has been withdrawn.
In light of Applicant’s amendment of claims in order to explicitly recite the structures that are responsible to perform the recited functions of the claims, Examiner agrees with Applicant, as presented in Page 10 of its Reply, that the claims are no longer invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f) and should not be interpreted under this section of rules.
In light of Applicant’s amendment of Claim 15, the rejection of record of this claim under 35 U.S.C. 101 has been withdrawn.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-15 are pending.
Claim Objections
Independent Claims 1, 14, and 15 are objected to because of the following informalities: in the one to last paragraph “the foreign objection” should be corrected to “the foreign object”. Appropriate correction is required.
Response to Arguments
Examiner has carefully reviewed Applicant’s arguments with respect to the amended claims filed with the Office on March 5, 2026. In light of Applicant’s amendment of claims, Applicant’s arguments, presented on Pages 13 and 14 of its Reply, with respect to the rejection of record under 35 U.S.C. 101, based on Abstract Idea, have been found persuasive. Therefore, the rejection of record of claims under 35 U.S.C. 101 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments presented in Pages of its Reply with respect to the rejections of record under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered. However, because of these arguments are merely directed to the amended portion of the claims, they are moot. Applicant’s amendment of claims, has altered the scope of the claims, and therefore, necessitated new ground(s) of rejection, as presented in the following sections. THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL.
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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
a. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
b. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
c. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
d. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-4 and 14-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Teratani Akira (JP 2009245172, whose machine translation to English was included in the previous Non-final Office Action) in view of Hayase et al. (US 2019/0050631).
Consider Claim 1 (and similarly method Claim 14 and program Claim 15 [Akira, Page 3 of 15, last paragraph discloses the memory storing a program]), Akira discloses “An information processing apparatus” (Akira, Fig. 1:10), “comprising: at least one processor; and a non-transitory memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to” (Akira, Page 3 of 15, last paragraph discloses a CPU and a memory): “perform detection of a foreign object” (Akira, Page 5 of 15 discloses: “he detection unit 21 is a means for detecting the moving body T for each detection point P in each detection point sequence from the captured image G in the counting target region R”), in an image obtained by capturing a passageway from above” (Akira, Fig. 1, camera 2 is installed above, capturing images of the passageway R), “for each of a plurality of zones set to the passageway, the foreign object being included in the image in a stationary state” (Akira, Page 5 of 15 discloses: “Based on the detection results at the plurality of detection points P of each detection point sequence, the number determination unit 22 uses the detection point sequence based on the number of detection points P that have detected the moving object T, their positional relationship, and the like”, detection points O of each detection sequence may be interpreted as the plurality of zones); “and determine whether a person corresponding to the foreign object has passed through the passageway based on a change over time in a zone in which the foreign object is detected, among the plurality of zones” (Akira, Page 5 of 15 discloses: with respect to the state where the moving body T is not detected (see FIG. 5A), the moving body T is moved at one or two adjacent detection points P in each detection point row.”, which is interpreted that if the moving foreign object is not detected by the camera anymore, it means that the object has left the zone]). Akira is not being relied on to disclose “wherein the processor performs the detection of the foreign objection in response to a start of face-authentication processing, and the processor stores a determination result of whether the person corresponding to the foreign object has passed through the passageway in association with an authentication result of the face-authentication processing.” However, in an analogous field of endeavor, Hayase discloses “wherein the processor performs the detection of the foreign objection in response to a start of face-authentication processing” (Hayase, Paragraph [0136] discloses: “The gate control unit 112 of the gate apparatus 10 controls opening and closing of the gate 106 based on a matching result signal transmitted from the face matching unit 314. That is, the gate control unit 112 opens the gate 106 when a matching-matched signal is transmitted from the face matching unit 314” i.e., upon authentication of the person), “and the processor stores a determination result of whether the person corresponding to the foreign object has passed through the passageway in association with an authentication result of the face-authentication processing” (Hayase, Paragraph [0136] discloses: “Thereby, a visitor performing ticket presentation is allowed to walk through the path 114 of the gate apparatus 10 to enter the inside of the facility as a person who has been successful in identity verification. The gate control unit 112 causes the gate 106 to be closed after the visitor walked through the path 114”, i.e., once the person, recognized by the authentication unit, has walked through, the control unit closes the gate, which means that person has successfully gone through).
Accordingly, before the effective date of the instant application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Akira with the teachings of Hayase to detect faces attempting to go through a passageway for authentication purposes. One of ordinary skill in the art could have combined these elements in order to create an automatic gateway entry for authorized personnels only (Hayase, Paragraph [0045]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Akira and Hayase to obtain the invention in Claim 1.
Consider Claim 2, the combination of Akira and Hayase discloses “The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein in a case where the change over time indicates that, among the plurality of zones, the zone in which the foreign object is detected changes in sequence between a first zone corresponding to an entrance of the passageway and a second zone corresponding to an exit of the passageway, the (Akira, Page 2 of 15 discloses: “Conventionally, in order to grasp the number of people entering and leaving a building or a specific facility such as a store, for example, a moving body passing through a predetermined area such as an entrance or a passage is detected and the number of passages is counted. In addition, as such a counting device, a counting target area is photographed from above by a camera, each captured image of the camera is subjected to image processing, analysis, etc., and a moving object passing through the counting target area in a predetermined direction is discriminated and counted.” In addition, Page 3 of 15 discloses: “The moving body counting device (hereinafter referred to as a counting device) of the present embodiment is a device that counts the number of moving bodies that pass through the counting target region by photographing with a camera from above, for example, a building or facility such as a store. It is installed in the vicinity of a door, a passage, etc., and used for counting moving objects such as people passing through the area in a predetermined direction. Below, the case where the moving body which moves through a door is counted inside the door which is the doorway to a building is taken and demonstrated as an example. In this case, the counting device uses a camera that captures a low-pixel image, and counts the number of moving bodies that move in and out through the door and enter and leave the building for each passing direction”) .
Consider Claim 3, the combination of Akira and Hayase discloses “The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein in a case where the change over time indicates that an order of a plurality of the zones in which the foreign object is detected is reversed, the processor determines that the person has gone back in the passageway” (Akira, Page 4 of 15 discloses: “The counting processing device 10 determines the moving (passing) direction of the moving body T based on the detection result of the moving body T at each detection point P in each row, its change, and the like, and the presence or absence of the moving body T passing through”, therefore, the moving direction may be detected, which means that the person may have gone back in the passageway).
Consider Claim 4, the combination of Akira and Hayase discloses “The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processor determines whether the foreign object is the person based on a size of the foreign object, and the determiner does not use the foreign object which has been determined as not the person, in determination as to whether the person has passed through the passageway” (Akira, Page 4 of 15 discloses: “At this time, in this counting device 1, in each detection point row, adjacent detection points P are arranged according to the shoulder width of an adult, and one adult detects at one detection point P or two adjacent detection points P).
Consider Claim 5, the combination of Akira and Hayase discloses “The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the detector starts the detection in response to a start of authentication processing using a face image of the person” (Hayase, Paragraph [0267]). The proposed combination as well as the motivation for combining the Akira and Hayase references presented in the rejection of Claim 1, apply to Claim 5 and are incorporated herein by reference. Thus, the apparatus recited in Claim 5 is met by Akira and Hayase.
Consider Claim 13, the combination of Akira and Hayase discloses “The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the passageway is the face-authentication processing of the person is performed” (Hayase, gateway of Fig. 1 and Paragraph [0267]). The proposed combination as well as the motivation for combining the Akira and Hayase references presented in the rejection of Claim 1, apply to Claim 13 and are incorporated herein by reference. Thus, the apparatus recited in Claim 13 is met by Akira and Hayase.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-12 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. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: none of the cited prior art references, alone or in combination, provides a motivation to teach the ordered combination of the limitations recited in these dependent claims.
Conclusion and Contact Information
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 Siamak HARANDI whose telephone number is (571)270-1832. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9:30 - 6:00 ET.
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/Siamak Harandi/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2662
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