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 1-20 are pending for examination in the instant application.
Claim Interpretation
Claims 9 and 10 are interpreted and independent claim form similar to independent claim 1. Claim 9 is a device and claim 10 is a CRM statutory class with same limitation as recited in independent claims 1 and 8.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 4/17/2024 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao et al. (Pub. No.: US 2019/0304105 A1), hereinafter “Gao” in view of Alem et la. (Privacy-Perserving Surveillance as an Edge Service Based on Lightweight Video Protection Schemes Using Face De-Identification and Window Masking), hereinafter “Alem”.
As to claim 1. A false positive elimination method (Gao, Abstract), applied to a device, and comprising:
acquiring an image of a target object, and analyzing the image to obtain an encryption feature and current position information of the target object (Gao, [0042], performing target object detection using object detection module 202 in accordance with some embodiments described herein. The process can begin when object detection module 202 receives a user-selected target location and the initial video frame associated with the user selection from user 104 (step 302) and [0040], HOG i.e. encryption features);
acquiring current image information of the target object, and comparing local historical image information with the current image information to obtain a comparison result (Gao, [0062], since the there are two video frames e.g. previous and current therefore, produces a correlation output between a local history (first video frame) and the current video frame);
detecting the current image information according to the current position information in response to the comparison result indicating that the local historical image information is inconsistent with the current image information (Gao, [0063], to avoid false positives, the location of the highest peak value is selected as the updated location of the target object in the current video frame only if the highest peak value is greater than the predetermined threshold value.);
acquiring the actual position information, verifying the target object based on the actual position information, determining the target object as a false positive object in response to a passed verification, and then performing a false positive elimination operation on the false positive object (Gao, [0063], to avoid false positives, the location of the highest peak value is selected as the updated location of the target object in the current video frame only if the highest peak value is greater than the predetermined threshold value.).
Gao however is silent to disclose explicitly, sending the encryption feature to a cloud in response to the target object being detectable in the current image information, so that the cloud determines actual position information of the target object based on the encryption feature.
Alem discloses a similar concept in the same field of endeavor including, sending the encryption feature to a cloud in response to the target object being detectable in the current image information, so that the cloud determines actual position information of the target object based on the encryption feature (Alem, page.10, lines paragraph-3, frames are transmitted from the edge cameras to the fog/cloud server in fully encrypted form. Then, the detection of window-and-face objects and subsequent denaturing are performed on the server just before they are forwarded to the viewing stations.).
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the instant application it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skilled in the art to incorporate the teachings of “Alem” into those of “Gao” to provide a method with a myriad of edge cameras deployed in urban and suburban areas, many people are seriously concerned about the constant invasion of their privacy. There is a mounting pressure from the public to make the cameras privacy-conscious. This paper proposes a Privacy-preserving Surveil-lance as an Edge service (PriSE) method with a hybrid architecture comprising a lightweight fore-ground object scanner and a video protection scheme that operates on edge cameras and fog/cloud-based models to detect privacy attributes like windows, faces, and perpetrators. The Reversible Chaotic Masking (ReCAM) scheme is designed to ensure an end-to-end privacy while the simplified foreground-object detector helps reduce resource consumption by discarding frames containing only background-objects.
As to claim 2. The combined system of Goa and Alem discloses the invention as in parent claim above, including, acquiring a pre-trained device model (Alem, page.16, using pre-trained model); and
deploying the pre-trained device model to an initial device to obtain the device (Alem, page16, fig.7).
As to claim 3. The combined system of Goa and Alem discloses the invention as in parent claim above, including, acquiring the image of the target object by using a local device object detection unit (Gao, [0073], local re-identification module); and sending the image to the pre-trained device model to obtain the encryption feature and the current position information of the target object (Alem, page.16, fig.7).
As to claim 4. The combined system of Goa and Alem discloses the invention as in parent claim above, including, sending current background image information to a local short-term background memory unit, so that the local short-term background memory unit compares the local historical image information with the current image information by using a regression algorithm (Alem, page.20, 2nd paragraph, In the remaining 615 frames, only the background is captured. According to PriSE approach, the 615 frames are discarded and only the 135 are encrypted and forwarded to the cloud/fog server. This saves about 120s of processing delay and 184 MB of memory. Hence, an edge cameras configured with this motion detector algorithm save latency, bandwidth and storage by discarding a number of frames with no objects or
with redundant information based on the threshold percentage of the difference ( framediff ) between every frame created and the reference frame computed using a fast vector operator.).
As to claim 8. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 1 above
As to claim 9. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 1 above.
As to claim 10. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 1 above
As to claim 14. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 2 above
As to claim 15. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 3 above.
As to claim 16. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 4 above.
As to claim 20. Is rejected for same rationale as applied to claim 2 above.
Examiner Note: Claim 5-7, 11-13 and 17-19 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please see the attached PTO-892.
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/Tauqir Hussain/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2446