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 .
Response to Arguments
The 112f rejection overcome.
Applicant arguments are persuasive. Please see the rejection below that at incorporates Nomi. Nomi teaches searching a reading format within a recognized character string and extracting a matching partial character string (pars. 117-119 and 129-130).
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.
Claims 1,3-10 and 12-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tonogai (20140093172) in view of Nomi (20150310270).
Regarding claim 1, Tonogai teaches a character string reading method capable of being executed by a character string reading device, comprising (pars. 8, 20, and 83-101, image processor performs character recognition):
obtaining a first image of a read object by an image sensor (pars. 75-76, 83, 96, and 111, camera sensor captures target image);
obtaining a first format of a character string to be read from the first image and to be output (pars. 39-49 and 59-60, stored format defines recognition target);
setting, as a first character recognition condition, that, from among characters which the character string reading device can identify, only a group of characters including all characters defined by the first format are to be identified (pars. 44, 47-49, 118, and 125, format restricts recognition candidate set); and
recognizing a first character string in the first image according to the first character recognition condition, the first character string including characters belonging to the group of characters (pars. 52-55, 64-65, 118, and 125, restricted candidates form recognized string).
Tonogai does not teach detecting a matching portion within a previously recognized first character string and obtaining that portion as a second character string. Tonogai instead applies format strings during recognition and selects a recognition result for a character-string region (pars. 118-128).
Nomi teaches detecting a portion of the recognized first character string that matches the first format (pars. 117-119 and 129-130, detects matching partial recognition result); and
obtaining, for output, from the recognized first character string, a second character string at the detected portion of the recognized first character string matching the first format (pars. 94, 99, 117-119, and 129-130, extracts matched partial character string).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Tonogai the post recognition partial string search and extraction taught by Nomi. The reason is to detect digit drop and other reading errors.
Regarding claim 3, see Tonogai pars. 60, 65-70 and 121, ranks plural regions by similarity. And see Nomi pars. 117-119, detects matching partial strings.
Regarding claim 4, see Tonogai par. 60, plural candidate regions may exist and Nomi pars. 20, 33 and 124, plural formats trigger warning.
Regarding claim 5, see Tonogai pars. 54, 60, 67 and 72, locates plural candidate regions and Nomi pars. 138-140, edge position indicates digit drop.
Regarding claim 6, see Nomi pars. 20, 33, 102-105 and 124.
Regarding claim 7, see Tonogai, pars. 8, 39-49 and 59-69, multiple format strings are set and pars. 44, 47-49 and 63-69, formats define candidate groups. See Nomi pars. 87-99, 117-119 and 128-131, partial matches become output candidates.
Regarding claim 8, see Nomi pars. 88 and 128-131, outputs longest matching candidate.
Regarding claim 9, see Tonogai pars. 43 and 131, format rule skips delimiter; pars. 43, 101 and 131, excludes delimiter from recognized output. Nomi teaches extracts partial character string in par. 129.
Regarding claim 10, see the rejection of claim 1 and pars. 75-83 of Tonogai.
Regarding claim 12, see the rejection of claim 3 above.
Regarding claim 13, see the rejection of claim 4 above.
Regarding claim 14, see the rejection of claim 5 above.
Regarding claim 15, see the rejection of claim 6 above.
Regarding claim 16, see the rejection of claim 7 above.
Regarding claim 17, see the rejection of claim 8 above.
Regarding claim 18, see the rejection of claim 9 above.
Regarding claim 19, see pars. 74-76 of Nomi the rejection of claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 20, see Nomi pars. 129-130, extracts "ABCDE" from longer result.
Regarding claim 21, see the rejection of claim 20 above.
Claims 2 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tonogai (20140093172) in view of Nomi (20150310270) and in further view of Koga (20060039605).
Regarding claim 2, Tonogai teaches recognizing of the first character string comprises: identifying which character the character candidate is, based on a matching rate obtained by comparing characteristics of the specified character candidate with characteristics of each of the characters in the group of characters (pars. 65, 116, 118 and 125, similarity identifies restricted candidate).
Tonogai does not teach recognizing a character candidate which is not identified as any of the characters in the group of characters as an indefinite character.
Nomi teaches recognizing a character candidate which is not identified as any of the characters in the group of characters as an indefinite character (par. 93, lowest-match candidate becomes indefinite).
Koga teaches recognizing first shapes included in the first image (pars. 24-27 and 29-34, detects character subimage pixel shapes);
specifying a character candidate constituted by a combination of one or more shapes among the first shapes (pars. 24-26 and 32-34, subimage shape becomes character candidate); and
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Tonogai and Nomi the segmentation and straight line layout validation taught by Koga. The reason is to form a coherent character string from adjacent OCR candidates under varying image conditions.
Regarding claim 11, see the rejection of claim 2 above.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/HADI AKHAVANNIK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2676
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