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 .
Claims 1-7 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 01/04/2024 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information referred to therein has been considered by the examiner.
Abstract
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it exceeds 150 words.
Correction is required. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
Claim Interpretation
The term “processor” in claim 1 is interpreted to be short for “microprocessor” or equivalent, which is a structural machine, consistent with the specification and the plain meaning.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(b)
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.
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites:
“extracting … a subject portion…; increasing … of a boundary portion …a non-subject portion …; determining, in pixel by pixel basis, whether the boundary portion corresponds to the non-subject portion; determining the subject portion and the non-subject portion based on a result of the determining the boundary portion as the non-subject portion”.
The definite article “the” before an element is usually used to refer to the exact same element defined earlier, it is therefore not clear what is meant by “determining, in pixel by pixel basis, whether the boundary portion corresponds to the non-subject portion” and “determining the subject portion and the non-subject portion based on a result of the determining the boundary portion as the non-subject portion”. Please clarify.
Figs. 2D-2F of the instant application seem to indicate that, after defining the three potions (Fig. 2D, BG’, UN, and FG’), each pixel in the boundary portion (UN) is checked to see whether it should be part of the subject portion (FG’) or the non-subject portion (BG’), resulting in an updated FG’ portion and BG’ portion (Fig. 2F).
Claims 4 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) for the same reasons as stated above.
In addition, there are insufficient antecedent bases for the following limitations:
Claim 3 recites “the image” in line 3 and “the number” in line 5.
Claim 5 recites “the processor” in line 2.
Claim 6 recites “the image” in line 3 and “the number” in lines 5-6.
Claim(s) not mentioned specifically is/are dependent on indefinite antecedent claims.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-7 are not rejected over the prior art of record. These claims may be allowable if the rejection under U.S.C. 112(b) above is overcome. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter
The claimed invention is directed to object detection and segmentation. In the context of the claimed invention as a whole, prior art of record fails to teach or render obvious all the independent claims 1, 4 and 7 which specifically comprise the following features: obtain an upper limit value of a calculation resource available for the extracting candidate data operation and the increasing a resolution of the boundary portion operation; determine a first value of the calculation resource to be assigned to the extracting candidate data operation and a second value of the calculation resource to be assigned to the increasing a resolution of the boundary portion operation, wherein the first and second values are equal to or less than the upper limit value.
The following references of record are deemed most relevant:
US 2015/0003725 (WAN) discloses a method of forming a refined depth map of an image (Fig. 3), including: segmenting the image into a superpixel image defining a foreground and a background in the superpixel image (i.e., use lower resolution image to extract candidate data); defining a trimap T consisting of a foreground region, a background region and an unknown region (i.e., subject portion, non-subject portion, and boundary portion); and forming a refined binary depth map of the image from the trimap by reclassifying the pixels in the unknown region as either foreground or background.
US 2022/0327830 (Chang et al.) discloses a system that supports the provisioning of calculation resource (pg. [0411]): “each component of processing application (such as background subtraction, detection of various elements) may be assigned an execution time budget within which to compute its output, such that the specified delay is met by a combination of the components … ensure that enough computation resources are allocated for appropriate resolutions and transmission rates … In certain cases, a normal resolution may be sufficient while in other cases a higher resolution may be needed … defining appropriate resolutions, data transmission rates, and computation resources allocation in view of the delay requirements”.
As allowable subject matter has been indicated, applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with. See 37 CFR 1.111(b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LI LIU whose telephone number is (571)270-5363. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday, 8:00AM-4:30PM, EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Emily Terrell can be reached on (571)270-3717. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LI LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2666