Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. 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
2. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
3. The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
4. Claims 1 and 8 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. The claims teach the limitation “compress[ing] the image as a single image data stream.” It is unclear where said limitation is taught in the specification as-originally filed. Nowhere in the specification as-originally filed teaches the terms “single”, “single image” or “stream”. The compression process of the instant application includes compressing a first region at a first compression ratio and a second region at a second compression ratio different than the first compression ratio. Paragraphs 0065-0071 from the published version of the instant application teach the image is divided into multiple regions (FIG. 5), then compressing targeted regions at a relatively higher compression ratio than the other block images that are compressed at a relatively lower compression ratio. Said paragraphs teach compressing using a “region compression unit 12” which is a region-based compression that compresses each region separately at different compression rate; therefore, the specification does not support compressing an image as a single image (image-based level compression), but rather as region-based level compression as explained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
8. Claim(s) 1-2, 5-8, and 10-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KAMEYAMA (US 2010/0119157).
As per claim 1, KAMEYAMA discloses an image compression device (FIG. 1) comprising:
a processor (see FIG. 31) configured to extract a protection target region from an image (paragraphs 0101-0102, The characteristic region detecting section 2203 compares the secondary evaluation value with a threshold value in order to extract a region which produces a secondary evaluation value exceeding the threshold value and in which the object of the particular type is highly likely to be present. In the above-described manner, the characteristic region detecting section 2203 detects the extracted region as a characteristic region in which the object of the particular type is present. As described above, the characteristic region detecting section 2203 combines a plurality of filters that extract characteristic amounts relating to a variety of characters of the outline of and the area occupied by an object. Therefore, the characteristic region detecting section 2203 can extract the characteristic regions more accurately when compared with a characteristic region detecting operation performed only with reference to, for example, the outline shape of an object), the protection target region being a region including a protection target of personal information (paragraph 0123, a region containing a person's face as a ROI and set the image quality of the detected ROI lower than the image quality of the non-ROI region in order to protect personal information); and
compress the image as…image data stream by compressing the protection target region at a first compression ratio and the region other than the protection target region at a second compression ratio, wherein the first compression ratio is higher than the second compression ratio (paragraph 0125, the image processing apparatus 2120 may be able to use a general-purpose coder for compressing the characteristic region moving images at high compression rates without using a specially designed coder; paragraph 0153, the compression strength determining section 2740 increases the compression strengths at which the compressing section 2240 compresses the characteristic region images as the information amounts increase…when the image processing apparatus 2120 relating to the present embodiment is put into a practical use, an ROI is compressed at a high rate; paragraph 0148, the compressing section 2240 compresses the images of the characteristic region, the background region and the boundary region at different strengths),
wherein the single image data stream is output from the processor and includes both the compressed protection target region and the compressed region other than the protection target region (paragraph 0081, the compressing section 2240 may sequentially in time compress the characteristic region moving images and the background region moving image. Alternatively, the compressing section 2240 may compress the captured moving image obtained by the decoding operation of the compressed moving image expanding section 2202, by compressing the regions defined by the image dividing section 2204 at the compression rates determined in advance for the character types and the background of the regions. In this manner, the compressing section 2240 may generate a single piece of moving image data).
Although KAMEYAMA teaches parallel compression that used compressors provided in a one-to-one correspondence with the image regions defined by the image diving section. KAMEYAMA, also teaches that the compression process can be implemented by a single compressor to generate a single piece of moving image data (paragraph 0081); furthermore, paragraph 0087 teaches that the single compressing section 2240 can compress a single entire image and when the single compressing section 2240 compresses a single entire image, the image dividing operation by the image dividing section 2204 and the value fixing operation by the value fixing section 2211 are not necessary.
Therefore, it is would have been obvious for a person skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the teachings in paragraphs 0081 and 0087 of KAMEYAMA, which supports compressing the image as a single image data stream, in order to reduce compression complexity so the compression becomes efficient since the image processing apparatus 2120 can be configured without the image dividing section 2204 and the value fixing unit 2210.
As per claim 2, KAMEYAMA discloses the image compression device according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to extract the protection target region by determining whether each of a plurality of blocks obtained by dividing the image corresponds to the protection target region (paragraphs 0094-0095, the characteristic region detecting section 2203 detects a region containing an object that matches a predetermined pattern of a person's face at a degree higher than a predetermined degree of match by way of the pattern matching technique or the like, and designates the detected face region as a ROI. Furthermore, the characteristic region detecting section 2203 detects a body region containing an object that matches a pattern of a person's body is higher than a predetermined degree of match by way of the pattern matching technique or the like, and designates the detected region as a ROI; see also paragraphs 0009 and 0111 regarding dividing an image into a plurality of regions or blocks; see FIG. 4).
As per claim 5, KAMEYAMA discloses the image compression device according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to determine, based on a size of the protection target included in the protection target region, the first compression ratio at which the protection target region is to be compressed (paragraphs 0153-0155, the compression strength determining section 2740 increases the compression strengths at which the compressing section 2240 compresses the characteristic region images as the information amounts increase… an ROI is compressed at a high rate, for example, when a person's face appears sufficiently large in the ROI).
As per claim 6, KAMEYAMA discloses the image compression device according to claim 4, wherein the size of the protection target is determined based on an area of the protection target included in the protection target region and an area of each of blocks obtained by dividing the image (paragraph 0152, the information amount may be a value indicative of how easily the person's face is recognized in the image. In this case, the information amount may be the area of the person's face or the number of pixels included in the image region representing the person's face; see also FIG. 25 and paragraph 0422).
As per claim 7, KAMEYAMA discloses the image compression device according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to output position information of the protection target region in the image (paragraph 0414, The compressed moving image acquiring section 3301 acquires a plurality of characteristic region moving image data and background region moving image data which are associated with one another and output by the output section 3207; the image data include ROI position as taught in FIG. 8 and paragraph 0165).
As per claim 8, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 1 are applicable for claim 8.
As per claims 10-12, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 5 are applicable for claims 10-12.
As per claim 13, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 6 are applicable for claim 13.
As per claims 14-18, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 7 are applicable for claims 14-18.
9. Claim(s) 3-4, 9 and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KAMEYAMA (US 2010/0119157) in view of CHOI et al. (US 2011/0085035) hereinafter “CHOI”.
As per claim 3, KAMEYAMA discloses the image compression device according to claim 1; however, KAMEYAMA does not explicitly disclose wherein the processor is configured to: perform a masking process of removing the personal information from the protection target region, and compress the image that has been subjected to the masking process.
In the same field of endeavor, CHOI discloses wherein the processor is configured to: perform a masking process of removing the personal information from the protection target region (paragraph 0014, In the method for protecting privacy information of a surveillance image in accordance with the present invention, which is capable of solving the problem of privacy invasion resulting from the exposure of privacy-related information such as a personal face, when a security control center monitors an image transmitted from a surveillance camera, masking is performed on an image containing privacy information such as a personal face or the like, by changing the color of a corresponding area into a given color before providing a user with the image collected from the surveillance camera or the like, thereby efficiently protecting the privacy information while monitoring the surveillance image), and compress the image that has been subjected to the masking process (FIG. 1; paragraph 0014, Further, an encoding method used for an original surveillance image is applied when re-encoding the image which the privacy information is masked, thereby improving encoding speed).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one having skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to modify the teachings of KAMEYAMA in view of CHOI, by masking the region containing privacy information and compressing the image that has been subject to the masking process, in order to avoid exposure of privacy-related information thereby efficiently protecting the privacy information while monitoring the surveillance image and improving encoding speed (CHOI, paragraph 0014)
As per claim 4, CHOI discloses wherein the processor is configured to perform, based on a size of the protection target included in the protection target region, the masking process on the protection target region (paragraphs 0051-0056).
As per claim 9, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 3 are applicable for claim 9.
As per claim 19, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 3 are applicable for claim 19.
As per claim 20, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 6 are applicable for claim 20.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMMED JEBARI whose telephone number is (571)270-7945. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 09:00am-06:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chris Kelley can be reached at 571-272-7331. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MOHAMMED JEBARI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2482