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 .
DETAILED ACTION
INFORMATION DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 05/22/2024 & 11/22/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
FOREIGN PRIORITY
A claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C § 119 (a) - (d), which was contained in the Declaration and Power of Attorney filed on 05/22/2024 has been acknowledged. Acknowledgement of claimed foreign priority and receipt of priority documents is reflected in form PTO-326 Office Action Summary.
RESTRICTION RESPONSE
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-8 & 12-20 in the reply filed on 06/10/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 9-11 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected group, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on (06/10/2026). Applicant is reminded claims 9-11 are required to be cancelled.
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 of this title, 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 & 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Acharya et al. (U.S. Publication 2002/0090107) in view of Todd (U.S. Patent 6,181,802)
As to claims 1 & 12, Acharya discloses a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored there on a computer program, which is executable by a processor to implement acts of watermark embedding (See [0040]), the acts comprising: generating, based on watermark information and the at least one image block to be processed, at least one target image block corresponding to the at least one image block to be processed respectively ([0021] discloses finally, a representation of each block is located and replaced with bits from the watermark image. See wherein the least two significant bit in the mean value 8-bit representation are replaced by two bits chosen from the logo image, resulting in a changed mean value. Each pixel value of each of the selected blocks is replaced by the corresponding changed mean value. )
, each target image block being embedded with at least a portion of the watermark information
([0021-0022] discloses replaced with bits from the watermark image. Replaced by two bits chosen from the logo image. The first 2 bits of the string is used to modify the mean of the first selected block. The next two bits are used to modify the next chosen block and so on. ); and generating a target image for the image to be processed by replacing the at least one image block to be processed with the at least one target image block in the image to be processed respectively ([0013] discloses once the insertion has been completed, the original image that has been altered by the watermark will be referred to as the watermarked image. [0021] discloses each pixel value of each of the selected blocks is replaced by the corresponding changed mean value).
Acharya is silent to determining, based on a set of key points identified in an image to be processed, at least one image block to be processed in the image to be processed.
However, Todd discloses determining, based on a set of key points identified in an image to be processed, at least one image block to be processed in the image to be processed. (Background/Summary discloses analyzing the image, identifying strongly featured regions and inserting coded information into these regions. The image e.g. a video frame or field is divided up into a number of blocks wherein strongly featured regions are searched in each block for insertion of code. Col. 8 Lines 18-30 discloses the local orientation for each point in the frame is calculated from four surrounding points. This gives a vector at each point in the frame, with the magnitude of the vector representing the strength of the feature. A very large value of orientation indicates the existence of an edge. Col. 9 Lines 5-20 discloses for blocks with a consistent local orientation a centre of the edge needs to be calculated. The local centroid is the center of the edge which is used to center the insertion on the edge.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to modify Acharya’s disclosure to include the above limitations in order to select watermark embedding blocks that are more resistance to filtering/compression while reducing visible image degradation.
As to claims 2 & 13, Acharya in view of Todd discloses everything as disclosed in claims 1 & 12 respectively. In addition, Acharya discloses wherein determining the at least one image block to be processed comprises: determining a set of candidate image blocks in the image to be processed ([0015] discloses the original image such as 24 shown in Fig. 2, will be partitioned into blocks at 10. determining the at least one image block to be processed from the set of candidate image blocks ([0016] discloses once the variance of each block is determined, the blocks are arranged in order by their variance values at 14. [0017] discloses the blocks to be selected are identified at 16. ).
Acharya in view of Todd current modification is silent to based on respective feature values of the set of key points and respective positions of the set of key points in the image to be processed, each candidate image block comprising at least one key point in the set of key points.
However, Todd discloses based on respective feature values of the set of key points (Col. 8 Lines 19-30 thru Col. 9 Line 10 discloses the local orientation for each point in the frame is calculated from four surrounding points. This gives a vector at each point in the frame, with the magnitude of the vector representing the strength of the feature.) and respective positions of the set of key points in the image to be processed (Col. 8 Lines 5-10 thru Col. 9 Line 20 discloses a pixel is defined by its coordinates and its luminance value. For blocks with a consistent local orientation a centre of the edge needs to be calculated. The local centroid is the center of the edge which is used to center the insertion on the edge.), each candidate image block comprising at least one key point in the set of key points. (Col. 8 Lines 19-30 discloses the local orientation for each point in the frame is calculated from four surrounding points. This local centroid is the center of the edge which is used to center the insertion on the edge.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to modify Acharya in view of Todd current modification’s disclosure to include the above limitations in order to determine candidate watermark embedding blocks using feature strength and feature position so that watermark embedding blocks are more resistant to filtering/compression while reducing visible image degradation.
As to claims 3 & 14, Acharya in view of Todd current modification discloses everything as disclosed in claims 2 & 13 respectively but is silent to wherein different candidate image blocks in the set of candidate image blocks are not overlapped with each other.
However, Todd discloses wherein different candidate image blocks in the set of candidate image blocks are not overlapped with each other. (Col. 8 Lines 11-18)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to modify Acharya in view of Todd current modification’s disclosure to include the above limitations in order to provide distinct candidate blocks for feature based watermark insertion and reduce ambiguity in selecting/processing watermark embedding blocks.
Claims 5 & 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Acharya et al. (U.S. Publication 2002/0090107) in view of Todd (U.S. Patent 6,181,802) as applied in claims 1 & 12 above further in view of Baluja (U.S. Publication 2020/0184592)
As to claims 5 & 16, Acharya in view of Todd current modification discloses everything as disclosed in claims 1 & 12 respectively. In addition, Acharya discloses wherein generating the at least one target image block ([0021]) comprises: for an image block to be processed of the at least one image block to be processed, obtaining a target image block corresponding to the image block to be processed by:
Acharya in view of Todd current modification is silent to generating, based on a feature of the watermark information and a feature of the image block to be processed, a fusion feature of the watermark information and the image block to be processed; and generating the target image block based on the fusion feature, the feature of the watermark information and the image block to be processed.
However, Baluja discloses generating, based on a feature of the watermark information and a feature of the image block to be processed, a fusion feature of the watermark information and the image block to be processed ([0036, 0038-0039]); and generating the target image block based on the fusion feature, the feature of the watermark information and the image block to be processed. ([0026, 0038])
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to modify Acharya in view of Todd current modification’s disclosure to include the above limitations in order to encode hidden watermark information while maintaining visual similarity between the carrier/target image block and original image.
CONCLUSION
No prior art has been found for claims 4, 6-8, 15 & 17-20 in their current form.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Stephen P Coleman whose telephone number is (571)270-5931. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 8AM-5PM.
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Stephen P. Coleman
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2675
/STEPHEN P COLEMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2675
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