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 .
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 1-2, 5-9, 12-16, 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Canon (AU 2008264173) view of Kumar (US 20190215464) in view of Mallzbender (WO 2010/141023).
Regarding claim 1, Canon teaches, a computer implemented method (abstract) comprising:
receiving, at a user device, a plurality of video streams, each video stream being associated with a different endpoint device, and each video stream including at least one face of a participant participating in a video communication session (Pg. 11, lines 9-15, 25-28, Fig. 1-2);
identifying the faces in the video stream of the plurality of video streams (abstract and step 620: the number of detected faces and their respective positions is obtained from the new frame using the processor 1205);
cropping multiple faces to produce a processed particular video stream, wherein the processed particular video stream includes the multiple faces (pg. 17, lines 29 through Pg. 18, lines 1-4 and Fig. 11);
sorting the plurality of video streams and the processed particular video stream according to video stream widths to produce a plurality of sorted video streams (Pg. 19, lines 27-28);
and distributing, for display, the plurality of sorted video streams across a number of rows on a display of the user device that minimizes unused space on the display (Pg. 16, lines 18-27, Pg. 20, lines 5-6, 11-13).
Canon does not explicitly teaches identifying multiple faces in a single frame as claimed, identifying metadata associated with the particular video stream, the metadata being generated by a sender endpoint device of the particular video stream, the metadata indicating how to crop the particular video stream; cropping around the multiple faces based on the metadata to produce a processed particular video stream.
Kumar in the same art of endeavor teaches identifying multiple faces in a single frame and cropping around the faces (Paragraph 45), identifying metadata associated with the particular video stream, the metadata being generated by a sender endpoint device of the particular video stream (Paragraph 45, 80: the detected face may be cropped from a frame of the room video stream using the location information provided by face detector 110. For example, the cropped portion of the frame may correspond to a rectangular (or circular) region specified by the location information).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Cannon with Kumar in order to improve the system and ensure cropping all faces which will enhance the conference experience.
Cannon in view of Kumar does not teach the metadata indicating how to crop the particular video stream; cropping around the multiple faces based on the metadata to produce a processed particular video stream.
Mallzbender in the same art of endeavor teaches in a video conferencing, metadata indicating how to crop the particular video stream; cropping around the multiple faces based on the metadata to produce a processed particular video stream (Paragraph 33-35, 58, 68).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Cannon with Kumar with Mallzbender in order to improve the system and enhance the conference experience and provide best display configuration for users.
Regarding claim 2, Cannon in view of Kumar in view of Mallzbender teaches, adjusting cropping of the plurality of sorted video streams to minimize unused pixels on the display of the user device, and distributing the plurality of video streams based on adjusting the cropping (Mallzbender: 29-30, 35, 38 and also see Fig. 2, 4).
Regarding claim 5, Cannon in view of Kumar in view of Mallzbender teaches, wherein distributing the plurality of sorted video streams comprises scaling the plurality of video streams to fill a row height (Mallzbender: Paragraph 39-41).
Regarding claim 6, Cannon in view of Kumar in view of Mallzbender teaches, determining that another video stream of the plurality of video streams includes a single face; and cropping another video stream to enlarge a size of the single face (Mallzbender: Paragraph 29).
Regarding claim 7, Cannon in view of Kumar in view of Mallzbender teaches, cropping a right side, a left side, a top, and a bottom of another video stream (Kumar: cropping around the face will be cropping a right side, a left side, a top, and a bottom).
Regarding claim 8, An apparatus (Fig. 12) comprising: a memory (el. 1206); a network interface configured to enable network communication (Fig. 12, el. 1213); and a processor (el. 1205), and please see claim 1 rejection.
Regarding claim 9, see claim 2 rejections.
Regarding claim 12, see claim 5 rejections.
Regarding claim 13, see claim 6 rejections.
Regarding claim 14, see claim 7 rejections.
Regarding claim 15, see claim 1 rejection.
Regarding claim 16, see claim 2 rejections.
Regarding claim 19, see claim 5 rejections.
Regarding claim 20, see claim 6 rejections.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4, 10-11, 17-18 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARIA EL-ZOOBI whose telephone number is (571)270-3434. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7-4.
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/MARIA EL-ZOOBI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2692
/CAROLYN R EDWARDS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2692
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