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 .
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
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.
Claim 4 is 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.
The term “certain resolution” in claim 4 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “certain resolution” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The original specification recites “The CPU 101 functions as the rendering unit 203 at S403, and performs so-called rendering processing in which only the graphic object in the hierarchical level being acquired is developed to a bitmap image of a specified certain resolution” (paragraph 33), however the original specification does not specify how a certain resolution is obtained or a set of procedures to obtain said certain resolution. Thus one of ordinary skill in the art would find the term “certain resolution” to be confusing as not knowing what certain resolution to set the rendered bitmap at.
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.
Claim(s) 1 – 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Imai (US 2009/0284777).
Regarding independent claim 1, Imai teaches an information processing apparatus (Figure 3) comprising: one or more memory devices that store a set of instructions; and one or more processors that execute the set of instructions (paragraph 67 and Claim 8) to:
input a document represented by hierarchical structure (paragraph 103: which of a plurality of objects will be located in front can be determined based on the drawing order of the objects described in the PDL data, and the specified drawing method such as overwriting . . . As shown in 13C of FIG. 13, the depth of the hierarchy increases in ascending order from "C", "B", "A" and the ellipse, as viewed from the user) including a plurality of drawing commands (paragraph 111: referring to the extracted fill map data with a text attribute, it is determined whether a text drawing instruction and an image drawing instruction coexist);
analyze each of the plurality of drawing commands of respective hierarchical levels corresponding to from a rearmost side to a frontmost side in the document, starting from the rearmost side (paragraph 102: whether there is an overlap between objects is determined by checking the overlap of this drawing position information; paragraph 101: FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating object drawing position information. In 13A of FIG. 13, the fact that the character string "ABC" is drawn, and only "B" is drawn on an ellipse is described as PDL data. In such a case, the PDL data is described such that an ellipse is drawn over with a graphics attribute, and "ABC" is subsequently drawn over with a text attribute);
determine whether or not the drawing command being analyzed is a command for drawing a graphic object (paragraph 111: Objects with a text attribute can be classified into a text drawing object and an image drawing object);
generate a rendered image of the graphic object by rendering the graphic object in a case where the determining determines that the drawing command is a command to draw the graphic object (paragraph 111: "Text drawing object" is an object described by a text drawing instruction instructing drawing of a character string such as "ABC". "Image drawing object" is an object described by an image drawing instruction instructing drawing of an ornamental character such as WordArt); and
perform character recognition processing on the rendered image (paragraph 111: For example, an ordinary object in which a text character and an ornament character are integrated as one has a text attribute; however, a text drawing instruction and an image drawing instruction coexist as drawing instructions. In the present embodiment, for such an object with a text attribute, in step S1512, rendering is performed on the fill map data, thereby generating bitmap data, and character recognition processing is performed on the bitmap data).
Regarding dependent claim 2, Imai teaches wherein drawing commands are arranged in the document in an order from a drawing command of a rearmost side to a drawing command of a frontmost side (paragraph 102: whether there is an overlap between objects is determined by checking the overlap of this drawing position information; paragraph 101: FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating object drawing position information. In 13A of FIG. 13, the fact that the character string "ABC" is drawn, and only "B" is drawn on an ellipse is described as PDL data. In such a case, the PDL data is described such that an ellipse is drawn over with a graphics attribute, and "ABC" is subsequently drawn over with a text attribute).
Regarding dependent claim 3, Imai teaches wherein the determining determines that the drawing command is a command for drawing a graphic object in a case where the drawing command includes a command indicating an image specified by a point and a line (Figure 14: Ellipse Drawing instruction containing plurality of point data and the geometric primitive to draw; paragraph 111: "Text drawing object" is an object described by a text drawing instruction instructing drawing of a character string such as "ABC". "Image drawing object" is an object described by an image drawing instruction instructing drawing of an ornamental character such as WordArt).
Regarding dependent claim 4, Imai teaches wherein the rendered image is a bitmap image (paragraph 86: the image processing apparatus refers to the fill map data, and, in the case where a drawing instruction for a text and a drawing instruction for an image coexist, performs rendering on the fill map data, and generates bitmap data) of a certain resolution (paragraph 86: fill map data and bitmap data naturally have a resolution).
Regarding dependent claim 5, Imai teaches wherein the one or more processors execute instructions in the one or more memory devices to: acquire a character code of a character being recognized and position information indicating a position of the character (paragraphs 96, 97: FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an outline of an algorithm for character recognition processing performed on fill map data. First, in step S1101, a set of edge lists in which the fill area during rendering is represented by the left and right coordinates are generated for fill map data. This is the same as described with reference to FIG. 10. Next, the midpoint of the edge lists along the x-axis is derived in step S1102, and a line that should exist along the x-axis is interpolated at step S1103. Next, intersection points and lines that should exist are interpolated in step S1104, and, in step S1105, the gradients between line segments are quantized, and the features (components) of the character are extracted. Next, in step S1106, the components of the character are broken down, and character recognition is performed by selecting a character that is closest to the characteristics of the extracted components).
Regarding dependent claim 6, Imai teaches wherein the one or more processors execute instructions in the one or more memory devices to: add the character code being acquired and the position information of the character to the document (paragraph 122: Then, the image processing apparatus performs vector/fill map conversion processing on the vector data, thereby generating fill map data, and concurrently generates object drawing position information. Then, referring to the object drawing position information, the image processing apparatus performs character recognition processing on the fill map data, thereby generating a character string; paragraph 123: The image processing apparatus further generates vector data hint information in which the generated character string is associated with the vector data, and stores the vector data and the vector data hint information in pair in the document storage unit 311).
Regarding dependent claim 7, Imai teaches wherein the document includes outline font characters which are text characters converted into graphic outline font characters (paragraph 111: "Text drawing object" is an object described by a text drawing instruction instructing drawing of a character string such as "ABC". "Image drawing object" is an object described by an image drawing instruction instructing drawing of an ornamental character such as WordArt).
Regarding claims 8 and 9, claims 8 and 9 is similar in scope as to claim 1, thus the rejection for claim 1 hereinabove are applicable to claims 8 and 9. Imai teaches a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions, when executed by a computer system (Claim 8).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JEFFREY J CHOW whose telephone number is (571)272-8078. The examiner can normally be reached 11AM-7PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Devona Faulk can be reached at 571-272-7515. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JEFFREY J CHOW/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2615
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