DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-7 are pending.
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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d).
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 04/18/2024, 05/17/2024, and 08/27/2024 have been considered by the Examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 3 and 5 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In claim 3, line 6, applicant recites “in the categorize”. This appears to be a typographical error and should be “the categorization”, referring to line 3 of claim 3.
In claim 3, line 8, applicant additionally refers to “the compare”. This appears to be a typographical error and should be “the comparison”, referring to line 9 of claim 3.
In claim 5, line 3, applicant refers to “the capture”. This appears to be a typographical error and should be “the captured image”, referring to line 2 of claim 4.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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 2, 3, 4, and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 2, 3 and 5, the claims recite “the remove” in line 2 of claim 2, line 2 of claim 3, and line 5 of claim 5. However, it is unclear whether the applicant is referring to the remove as a candidate region that is determined to be removed, in line 13 of claim 1, or a removed candidate region, in line 14 of claim 1. Therefore, applicant has failed to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or joint inventor regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 4, the claim recites “the obtain” in line 2 of claim 4. However, it is unclear whether the applicant is referring to the obtain as the obtained image in line 5 of claim 1 or the obtained detection information in line 9 of claim 1. Therefore, applicant has failed to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or joint inventor regards as the invention.
Additionally, claim 5 depends on claim 4 and fails to clarify what “the obtain” is referring to.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 4, 6, and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by the publication titled "Supervised People Counting Using An Overhead Fisheye Camera" to Li et al. ("Li").
Regarding claim 1, Li discloses an image processing apparatus for detecting a person region representing a person in an image, comprising:
one or more memories storing instructions (Page 1, see footnote, wherein memory is inherently necessary for the use of GPUs);
and one or more processors executing the instructions to (Page 1, see footnote, wherein the Titan GPUs from NVIDIA Corp. are the processors):
obtain an image (Section 1, column 2, line 37);
generate a plurality of rotated images by rotating an obtained image by a plurality of preset angles (Section 3, lines 6-10, wherein the captured image is rotated to obtain a new window (i.e. image) with new data);
execute person detection processing on each one of the plurality of rotated images and obtain detection information (Section 3, lines 10-13, wherein YOLOv3 is the person detector and post-processing generates results) including information indicating a candidate region of a detected person (Section 5.1, lines 2-4, wherein the bounding box corresponds to a candidate region) and information indicating a likelihood as a person in the candidate region (Section 3.2, lines 3-6, wherein the confidence of the “people class” corresponds to likelihood of a person); and
using detection information obtained via detection of the detected person, determine a candidate region to be removed from a person region in accordance with each likelihood and remove the candidate region (Section 3.2, lines 3-6, wherein bounding boxes (i.e. candidate regions) with low confidence of the “people class” (i.e. likelihood of a person) are not retained (i.e. removed)).
Regarding claim 4, Li discloses the image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an imaging unit (Section 5.1, column 2, lines 3-9, wherein the imaging unit has the AXIS M3057-PLVE camera and Geovision GV-FER12203 camera) that captures an image targeted for the obtain using a fisheye lens (Section 1, column 2, lines 36-37; Section 5.1, column 2, lines 3-5)
Regarding claim 6, Li discloses a control method for an image processing apparatus for detecting a person region representing a person in an image, comprising:
obtaining an image (Section 1, column 2, line 37);
generating a plurality of rotated images by rotating an obtained image by a plurality of preset angles (Section 3, lines 6-10, wherein the captured image is rotated to obtain a new window (i.e. image) with new data;
executing person detection processing on each one of the plurality of rotated images and obtaining detection information (Section 3, lines 10-13, wherein YOLOv3 is the person detector and post-processing generates results) including information indicating a candidate region of a detected person (Section 5.1, lines 2-4, wherein the bounding box corresponds to a candidate region) and information indicating a likelihood as a person in the candidate region (Section 3.2, lines 3-6, wherein the confidence of the “people class” corresponds to likelihood of a person); and
using detection information obtained via detection of the detected person, determining a candidate region to be removed from a person region in accordance with each likelihood and removing the candidate region (Section 3.2, lines 3-6, wherein bounding boxes (i.e. candidate regions) with low confidence of the “people class” (i.e. likelihood of a person) are not retained (i.e. removed)).
Regarding claim 7, Li discloses a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium (Page 1, see footnote; section 1, column 2, line 16, wherein memory is inherently necessary for the use of desktop GPUs);
storing a computer program (Abstract, lines 9-10; Figure 4; Section 6, lines 1-4 and 22-23, wherein algorithms are adapted and ran using desktop GPUs (section 1, column 2, line 16), and that inherent memory associated with the GPU would necessarily store the algorithms for repeated use by the GPU) that when read and executed by a computer (Page 1, see footnote; section 1, column 2, line 16, wherein the Titan GPUs from NVIDIA Corp. are the processors and are used to run the algorithm) provided in an image processing apparatus for detecting a person region representing a person in an image, causes the computer to
obtain an image (Section 1, column 2, line 37);
generate a plurality of rotated images by rotating an obtained image by a plurality of preset angles (Section 3, lines 6-10, wherein the captured image is rotated to obtain a new window (i.e. image) with new data);
execute person detection processing on each one of the plurality of rotated images and obtain detection information (Section 3, lines 10-13, wherein YOLOv3 is the person detector and post-processing generates results) including information indicating a candidate region of a detected person (Section 5.1, lines 2-4, wherein the bounding box corresponds to a candidate region) and information indicating a likelihood as a person in the candidate region (Section 3.2, lines 3-6, wherein the confidence of the “people class” corresponds to likelihood of a person); and
using detection information obtained via detection of the detected person, determine a candidate region to be removed from a person region in accordance with each likelihood and removing the candidate region (Section 3.2, lines 3-6, wherein bounding boxes (i.e. candidate regions) with low confidence of the “people class” (i.e. likelihood of a person) are not retained (i.e. removed)).
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 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.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al. (NPL titled “Supervised People Counting Using an Overhead Fisheye Camera”) in view of Betser (European Publ. No. EP 2816502 A1).
Regarding claim 2, Li discloses the image processing apparatus according to claim 1.
Li does not disclose wherein in the remove, from among each detection information detected with the detection of the detected person, detection information not satisfying a preset highest ranking k (k being a natural number) is set for removal.
Betser, on the other hand, discloses an image processing apparatus that associates a score to detection information (paragraph 0036), selecting the detection with the highest detection score and filtering out the other detections (paragraph 0050).
More specifically, and as it relates to the applicant’s claim language, Betser discloses wherein in the remove, from among each detection information detected with the detection of the detected person (paragraph 34, wherein a score is associated with face detection (i.e. detection information of detected person)), detection information not satisfying a preset highest ranking k (k being a natural number) (paragraph 0036, wherein a score (i.e. ranking) associated with face detection (i.e. detection information) is a natural number) is set for removal (paragraph 0050, wherein the highest detection score is chosen and the other detections are filtered (i.e. removed)).
Li and Betser are combinable because they are from the same art of image processing.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the apparatus wherein in the remove, from among each detection information detected with the detection of the detected person, detection information not satisfying a preset highest ranking k (k being a natural number) is set for removal, as taught by Betser, into the apparatus for detecting a person region representing a person in an image disclosed by Li.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to reduce the presence of false positive detections (Betser, paragraph 0037)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Li with Betser to obtain the invention as specified in claim 2.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 and 5 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:
Regarding claim 3, the primary reason for indication of allowable subject matter is that the prior art fails to teach or reasonably suggest categorizing into corresponding candidate regions for each rotated image detected with the detection of the detected person and calculating a difference between a maximum likelihood of a target candidate region categorized in the categorize and a likelihood of the target candidate region obtained from a rotated image with a rotation angle 180 degrees from that of a rotated image with the maximum likelihood, in combination with the other elements of the claim.
The closest prior art (Shimauchi et al., U.S. Publ. No. US 2019/0384969 A1) teaches comparing a difference to a threshold and removing the person candidate point from the detection frame indicating that the moving body in the detection frame is not a person but fails to specifically teach categorizing into corresponding candidate regions for each rotated image detected with the detection of the detected person and calculating a difference between a maximum likelihood of a target candidate region categorized in the categorize and a likelihood of the target candidate region obtained from a rotated image with a rotation angle 180 degrees from that of a rotated image with the maximum likelihood.
As for claim 5, the primary reason for indication of allowable subject matter is that the prior art fails to teach or reasonably suggest storing a table in which a plurality of divided field of view regions with a preset field of view area in the capture are associated with a rotation angle for removal and remove the target candidate region from being a candidate for a person region on a condition that a rotation angle for removal obtained by referencing the table and a rotation angle of a rotated image where the target candidate region exists match and a likelihood in the target candidate region is less than a preset threshold, in combination with the other elements of the claim.
The closest prior art (Li et al. (NPL titled “Supervised People Counting Using an Overhead Fisheye Camera”)) teaches mapping detections from focus window to original image (section 3.2, lines 1-5) but fails to specifically teach storing a table in which a plurality of divided field of view regions with a preset field of view area in the capture are associated with a rotation angle for removal and removing the target candidate region from being a candidate for a person region on a condition that a rotation angle for removal obtained by referencing the table and a rotation angle of a rotated image where the target candidate region exists match and a likelihood in the target candidate region is less than a preset threshold.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RACHEL Y DANG whose telephone number is (571)438-9519. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday: 8am - 5pm.
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/Rachel Y Dang/ /JOHN VILLECCO/Examiner, Art Unit 2661 Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2661