DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 2-15, in the reply filed on 07/04/2026 is acknowledged. Claims 16-21 have been withdrawn. Claim 1 was previously cancelled. Claims 2-15 are pending in the present application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements submitted on 09/11/2025, 02/24/2026 and 05/18/2026 have been considered by the Examiner and made of record in the application file.
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 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.
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.
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:
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 2 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sobh (US 2020/0143148 A1) in view of Stufflebeam (US 2014/0173639 A1).
Regarding claims 2 and 9, Sobh discloses a method for retrieving a stored object profile, the method comprising: (Sobh discloses matching a captured face record against records in the Feature/DM database and returning a final match corresponding to a single stored facial image, see paragraphs 52-57)
receiving, from an electronic device, a live image scan; (Sobh discloses capturing an image of a target individual using a camera or video camera and providing captured image 204 to the recognition system, see paragraphs 23 and 40-41)
generating a feature vector (distance matrix) from the live image scan; (extracting facial metrics from the normalized captured image and generating a distance matrix representing the facial feature distances and sizes, see paragraphs 28-35 and 44-51)
tagging the generated feature vector with a (outputting the generated distance matrix as part of captured image record 230, which includes a unique identifier, the normalized image, and the distance matrix, see paragraph 51)
identifying a search scope within a directory, the search scope including a plurality of partitions within the directory, (Using the Feature/DM database as the collection to be searched and dividing its face records into separate sublists assigned to respect Map functions and distributed nodes for parallel processing, see paragraphs 52-53) wherein the directory includes a profile of an object that includes information corresponding to the object and a stored (Sobh discloses the Feature/DM database stores face records containing a normalized image, distance matrix, and an ID. The database records are divided into separate sublists for searching, see paragraphs 51-53.)
searching, in parallel, each partition of the plurality of partitions (Sobh discloses dividing database records into sublists and searches the sublists independently and in parallel, see paragraphs 53-54)
identifying the profile (Sobh discloses producing a final result identifying a single stored database image that matches the captured image, see paragraphs 39 and 57.)
Sobh fails to specifically disclose a GUID in the tag applied to the generated feature vector, a stored FUID corresponding to the object profile, searching the partitions for the stored FUID corresponding to the tagged GUID and identifying the profile corresponding to the tagged GUID.
In related art, Stufflebeam discloses a GUID in the tag applied to the generated feature vector, (Stufflebeam generates a biometric template from extracted features and stores a GUID associated with that template in its database record, see paragraphs 17, 20, 29 and 32-34.) a stored FUID corresponding to the object profile, (The record for each biometric template may include a GUID identity value, template data, metadata, and additional data, thereby tying the stored GUID to the profile, see paragraph 29.) searching the partitions for the stored FUID corresponding to the tagged GUID (QueryRecord searches for records matching a specified identity, the identity may be the template GUID, and GetCurrentRecord retrieves the matching record, see paragraphs 28-29 and table 1.) and identifying the profile corresponding to the tagged GUID. (The matching record contents and metadata associated with the matched biometric template are retrieved, thereby identifying the corresponding profile, see paragraphs 28-29, 40 and table 1.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate Sobh’s generic unique identifiers as Stufflebeam’s GUID identity values and to use Stufflebeam’s identity based record query operations within each of Sobh’s parallel database partitions. Sobh associates its query and stored feature representations with IDs and distributes the database records across independently searched nodes. Stufflebeam teaches that a GUID can be associated with each biometric template record and used as the identity for querying and retrieving that record. This would provide globally unique biometric records across distributed partitions and deterministic retrieval of the corresponding profile and metadata.
Regarding claims 8 and 15, Sobh, as modified by Stufflebeam, discloses the claimed invention wherein the directory comprises a plurality of field names, the plurality of field names comprising a partition key, a row key, an average image, an object ID, a person ID, or contact information. (Sobh: paragraphs 52-53)
Claims 3-5 and 10-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sobh in view of Stufflebeam and in further view of Protopapas (US 2014/0282931 A1).
Regarding claims 3-5 and 10-12, Sobh, as modified by Stufflebeam, discloses the claimed invention except for wherein modifying the information in the identified profile and deleting the identified.
In related art, Protopapas discloses modifying the information in the identified profile, deleting the identified profile and deleting the information in the identified profile. (paragraphs 53-55)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teachings of Protopapas into the teachings of Sobh and Stufflebeam to effectively authenticate, create and apply a user profile.
Claims 7 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sobh in view of Stufflebeam and in further view of Gottemukkula (US 2015/0078629 A1).
Regarding claims 7 and 14, Sobh, as modified by Stufflebeam, discloses the claimed invention except for wherein generating the feature vector from the live image scan comprises computing an average image of live image scans specific to the object.
In related art, Gottemukkula discloses generating the feature vector from the live image scan comprises computing an average image of live image scans specific to the object. (figure 1, steps 102-110)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teachings of Gottemukkula into the teachings of Sobh and Stufflebeam to reduce image noise.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 and 13 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BOBBAK SAFAIPOUR whose telephone number is (571)270-1092. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 5:00pm.
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/BOBBAK SAFAIPOUR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665
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