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 .
Priority
Application claims priority to foreign application with application number JP2023-097586 dated 06/14/2023. Copies of certified papers required by 37 CFR 1.55 have been received. Priority is acknowledged under 35 USC 119(e) and 37 CFR 1.78.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 8, filed 07/17/2026, with respect to the objection to the specification have been fully considered and are persuasive. The issues with the abstract have been resolved. The objection to the specification has been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed 07/17/2026 with respect to the rejection of the amended claim 1 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that the amendments to claim 1, incorporating limitations previously recited in claim 4, overcome the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. 102 and the rejection of claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. 103. Applicant’s argument has two main sections.
Firstly, applicant argues Atoun does not teach, disclose, or suggest the claimed “character-recognition success counts”, and that if the “text-comparison-based degree of similarity evaluation” of Atoun was incorporated into the invention of Ogawa, it would not function properly.
However, the test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981). Atoun is not relied upon to teach the specific methodology of character recognition and comparison; these limitations are taught by Ogawa as described in the rejection of claim 1. Atoun is only required to teach the limitations involving performing the process sequentially, iterating the image reduction indefinitely until an output image no longer satisfies a determination condition. One of ordinary skill in the art may have incorporated these specific features of Atoun into Ogawa while leaving the character recognition and comparison of Ogawa intact.
Secondly, applicant argues that there would have been no motivation to combine the teachings of Atoun with the invention of Ogawa, stating that the goal of Atoun (compression for reducing data size) is too different from the goal of Ogawa (image resolution scaling for document display).
In response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, Atoun is cited to teach an automation/optimization for the process of Ogawa (continuing to reduce an image sequentially until it no longer satisfies a condition, then selecting the previous image in the sequence that did satisfy the condition) which would provide a clear benefit to the invention of Atoun. Furthermore, despite the differences between Ogawa and Atoun, both may still be considered analogous art because they are in the same field OCR, specifically image reduction based on text recognition. Both ultimately perform the same task on a high level: reducing the resource demand of an image while still accounting for legibility of text. Though the type of image reduction performed by Atoun is different than the image reduction of Ogawa, this specific element of Atoun is not relied upon to teach any of the claimed limitations, as previously discussed.
Therefore, the rejection of claim 1 is maintained.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 7, and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ogawa (US 20190182397 A1) in view of Atoun et al. (US 20200186675 A1, hereinafter "Atoun").
Regarding claim 1, Ogawa teaches:
An image processing apparatus (fig. 1) comprising:
a second image generator that generates at least one second image obtained by reducing a first image at a predetermined resizing ratio (fig. 2; [0033]-[0039] “Image Data Generation Processing” explains how an image may be resized to a user’s selected resolution, which is lower than the original resolution; in particular the following sections:
[0035] explains that a user selects a resolution for image resizing from a list of predetermined resolutions, thus the resizing ratio may also be considered to be predetermined;
[0038] “In step S3, the controller 1 generates, from the first image data (the image data having the highest resolution), image data having a resolution one level lower than the highest resolution. In step S4, the controller 1 generates, from the first image data (the image data having the highest resolution), image data having the resolution chosen by the user. Whether in step S3 or in step S4, new image data is generated having a resolution lower than the highest resolution. In the following description, the new image data (the image data having a resolution one level lower than the resolution of the first image data) generated based on the first image data will be referred to as second image data.”);
a character-recognition success count determiner that performs character recognition on the first image and the second image and determines a first character-recognition success count for the first image and a second character-recognition success count for the second image, wherein the first character-recognition success count is a number of characters for which the character recognition on the first image is successful, and the second character-recognition success count is a number of characters for which the character recognition on the second image is successful (fig. 3; [0040]-[0050] “Comparison Value Setting Processing” explains how character recognition is performed on the first (original) and second (reduced) images and the results recorded; in particular the following sections:
[0042] “In step S11, the controller 1 performs the character recognition processing on both the first image data and the second image data. In the following description, the recognition result of the character recognition processing performed on the first image data will be referred to as a first recognition result, and the recognition result of the character recognition processing performed on the second image data will be referred to as a second recognition result.”
[0043] “In step S12, the controller 1, based on the first recognition result, sets a first comparison value to be used in the resolution setting processing. The controller 1, based on the second recognition result, sets a second comparison value to be used in the resolution setting processing.”
[0045] “Here, both in the first processing and in the second processing, the first comparison value and the second comparison value are each set based on the confidence factor of the recognition result of each character in the character recognition processing. The confidence factor is a value (in percentage) that indicates the certainty of the recognition result.”);
a condition determiner that determines, for the second image, whether a ratio of the second character-recognition success count to the first character-recognition success count satisfies a predetermined determination condition (fig. 4; [0051]-[0059] “Resolution Setting Processing” explains how the difference between the character recognition results for the first and second images is compared to a predetermined threshold, in particular the following sections:
[0053] “In step S21, the controller 1 obtains a value (hereinafter, referred to as a first target value) by subtracting the second comparison value from the first comparison value.”;
[0056] In step S22, when the controller 1 has determined that the first target value is a positive value, the flow proceeds to step S24. In step S24, the controller 1 checks whether or not the first target value is equal to or more than a predetermined threshold value. The threshold value is 10% to 20%, for example. The threshold value can be changed by the user as necessary, and it is the operation panel 4 that accepts, from the user, the change of the threshold value.
NOTE: In the invention of Ogawa, the initial comparison between the second character-recognition success count and the first character-recognition success count is a difference (subtraction) rather than a ratio (division); however, because the subsequent threshold for condition determination is expressed in terms of a percentage, the calculation may be considered equivalent in principle to using a ratio for the initial comparison because the result is proportional to the first and second character-recognition success counts instead of being relative to a fixed value); and
a limited resizing ratio determiner that determines, as a limited resizing ratio for the first image, a resizing ratio for the second image determined to satisfy the predetermined determination condition by the condition determiner (fig. 5 and 6; [0060] to [0066] “First-Resolution Setting Processing” explains how if the threshold is exceeded, the output image resolution will be higher than the resized second image, including additional information on the specifics; on the other hand, [0067] to [0079] “Second-Resolution Setting Processing” explains how if the threshold is not exceeded, the output image resolution will be equal to or lower than the resized second image, including additional information on the specifics).
wherein:
the second image generator further generates a plurality of second images (fig. 6; [0067]-[0079] explains that if a second image does not meet the threshold difference in OCR output, a third image is generated which has a resolution one level lower than the second images, where both the second and third images of Ogawa may be considered reduced “second images” as claimed; in particular the following sections:
[0072] “In step S43, the controller 1 generates, from the first image data (the image data having the highest resolution), new image data having a resolution one level lower than the resolution of the second image data. That is, the controller 1 additionally performs the image data generation processing. In the following description, the new image data (image data having the resolution one level lower than the resolution of the second image data) generated based on the first image data will be referred to as third image data.”),
the character-recognition success count determiner further determines the character-recognition success count for each of the plurality of second images ([0073] “In step S44, the controller 1 performs the character recognition processing on the third image data. In the following description, the recognition result of the character recognition processing performed on the third image data will be referred to as a third recognition result.”
[0074] “Then, in step S45, the controller 1 additionally performs the comparison value setting processing on the third recognition result as the target, and sets a third comparison value based on the third recognition result.”;
Character-recognition values for the original second image have already been determined as discussed in claim 1),
the condition determiner further determines whether, for each of the plurality of second images, the ratio of the second character-recognition success count to the first character-recognition success count satisfies the predetermined determination condition ([0075] “After the third comparison value is set, in step S46, the controller 1 obtains a value (hereinafter, referred to as a second target value) by subtracting the third comparison value from the first comparison value. Then, in step S47, the controller 1 checks whether the second target value is a positive value smaller than a threshold value (which is the same value as the threshold value used in the processing performed in step S24 illustrated in FIG. 4), and
the limited resizing ratio determiner further determines, as the limited resizing ratio for the first image, a resizing ratio for a second image ([0075]-[0079] describes how if the OCR comparison to the third, smaller image still does not exceed the threshold, the third image is output (fig. 6 step S48); otherwise, the second, previous image is output (fig. 6 step S49)).
Ogawa is not relied upon to teach the limitations: the second image generator further generates a plurality of second images by repeatedly generating the second image while decreasing the resizing ratio stepwise, and
the limited resizing ratio determiner further determines, as the limited resizing ratio for the first image, a resizing ratio for a second image generated immediately before a second image that is a first instance of the plurality of second images determined not to satisfy the predetermined determination condition.
Atoun teaches: the second image generator further generates a plurality of second images by repeatedly generating the second image while decreasing the resizing ratio stepwise (fig. 2, steps 220 to 260 are repeated, including generating a new image at a higher compression rate and performing the OCR comparison, until the threshold is met at step 250;
[0069] “The server 120 compresses the given image at a given compression ratio, giving rise to a compressed image (block 220). The given compression ratio can be retrieved from the compression rates table 140.”), and
the limited resizing ratio determiner further determines, as the limited resizing ratio for the first image, a resizing ratio for a second image generated immediately before a second image that is a first instance of the plurality of second images determined not to satisfy the predetermined determination condition ([0075] “Upon the rule being met, the server 120 can increase the given compression ratio (block 260), and repeat blocks 220-260, until the rule is not met. When the rule is not met, the server can return to the previous compression rate (block 270), being the compression rate used in a previous iteration of the compression rate determination process 200, and the process ends (block 280).”; [0077] “As a result of the process, a desired compression rate that meets the rule of block 250 is identified.”).
Atoun is analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field and pertains to the same issue of determining the extent to which an image should be reduced based on a comparison of OCR results. In general, the method carried out by the invention of Atoun is extremely similar to the methods of Ogawa and the claimed invention, except that it uses image compression instead of image resizing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the invention of Ogawa with the teachings of Atoun to loop the procedure to keep reducing the image in size until right before the text is illegible. The motivation would have been to ensure that the smallest size (in terms of data and/or physical space) is reached regardless of the number of steps it takes, rather than automatically stopping after 2 iterations as taught by Ogawa.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Ogawa in view of Atoun teaches: The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the condition determiner determines that the determination condition is satisfied in a case that the ratio of the second character-recognition success count to the first character-recognition success count is equal to or higher than a predetermined ratio determination threshold, or in a case that a difference between the second character-recognition success count and the first character-recognition success count is equal to or smaller than a predetermined difference determination threshold (Ogawa fig. 4; [0051]-[0059] “Resolution Setting Processing” explains how the difference between the character recognition results for the first and second images is compared to a predetermined threshold, in particular the following sections:
[0053] “In step S21, the controller 1 obtains a value (hereinafter, referred to as a first target value) by subtracting the second comparison value from the first comparison value.”;
[0056] In step S22, when the controller 1 has determined that the first target value is a positive value, the flow proceeds to step S24. In step S24, the controller 1 checks whether or not the first target value is equal to or more than a predetermined threshold value. The threshold value is 10% to 20%, for example. The threshold value can be changed by the user as necessary, and it is the operation panel 4 that accepts, from the user, the change of the threshold value;
As previously explained in the rejection of claim 1, the use of a percentage value for the threshold determination causes the difference calculation of Ogawa to function similarly to a ratio calculation).
Regarding claim 7, it is rejected with the same rationale as claim 1 because its limitations substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 1.
Regarding claim 8, it is rejected with the same rationale as claim 1 because its limitations substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 1, with the additional limitation of: A non-transitory tangible computer-readable recording medium storing an image processing program for causing a computer to execute image processing (Ogawa fig. 1 memory 12 and image processing module 13;
[0014] “The controller 1 includes a CPU 11, a memory 12, an image processing module 13, and a preview-image generating module 14. The CPU 11 operates based on a control program and control data, and performs processing for controlling various sections of the multifunction peripheral 100. The memory 12 has stored therein the control program and the control data for making the CPU 11 operate.”;
[0015] “The image processing module 13 includes, for example, a dedicated circuit and a dedicated memory that are used exclusively for image processing of various kinds performed on the image data. The controller 1 uses the image processing module 13 to perform the image processing on the image data.”).
Claim(s) 5-6 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ogawa (US 20190182397 A1) in view of Atoun (US 20200186675 A1) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Aoyanagi (JP 2006166217 A).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Ogawa in view of Atoun teaches: The image processing apparatus according to claim 1.
The combination of Ogawa in view of Atoun is not relied upon to teach: further comprising an image reduction processing restrictor that restricts the reducing of the first image at a resizing ratio lower than the limited resizing ratio.
Aoyanagi teaches: an image reduction processing restrictor that restricts the reducing of the first image at a resizing ratio lower than the limited resizing ratio ([0009] “Subsequently, the system calculates how much the smallest recognized character size will be reduced in print using the reduction ratio calculated above. If it is reduced to a size that is deemed illegible, the copy operation is temporarily stopped, and the system accepts requests to either continue the copy operation or change the settings.”).
Aoyanagi is analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field and pertains to the same issue of determining the extent to which an image should be resized based on OCR results. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the invention of Ogawa in view of Atoun with the teachings of Aoyanagi to warn a user when attempting to reduce an image to a size that would result in illegible text. The motivation would have been to discourage a user from wasting time and processing performing an operation which is likely to produce unsatisfactory results.
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Ogawa in view of Atoun and further in view of Aoyanagi teaches: The image processing apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising an operator that receives an operation of instructing reduction of the first image, wherein the image reduction processing restrictor restricts the operator from accepting the operation of instructing reduction of the first image at the resizing ratio lower than the limited resizing ratio ([0009] “Subsequently, the system calculates how much the smallest recognized character size will be reduced in print using the reduction ratio calculated above. If it is reduced to a size that is deemed illegible, the copy operation is temporarily stopped, and the system accepts requests to either continue the copy operation or change the settings.”).
The motivation to combine the invention of Ogawa in view of Atoun with the teachings of Aoyanagi would have been the same as described for claim 5.
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Ogawa in view of Atoun teaches: The image processing apparatus according to claim 1.
The combination of Ogawa in view of Atoun is not relied upon to teach: wherein the second image generator reduces the first image while maintaining an aspect ratio of the first image.
Aoyanagi teaches: wherein the second image generator reduces the first image while maintaining an aspect ratio of the first image (fig. 17 shows images being resized while maintaining the same aspect ratio;
pg. 10 paragraph [0013] teaches the use of a single “reduction ratio” to reduce an image, suggesting that the length and width are scaled equally: “As described above, when using the reduced layout function, the system recognizes the size of the smallest characters contained in the original document, determines what reduction ratio is necessary for the characters to remain legible when printed, and uses the maximum legible reduction ratio to determine the number of original documents included in one reduced layout page. This enables the user to print out a reduced layout with characters of a size they can read.”).
Aoyanagi is analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field and pertains to the same issue of determining the extent to which an image should be resized based on OCR results. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the invention of Ogawa in view of Atoun with the teachings of Aoyanagi to maintain an image’s aspect ratio when resizing it. The motivation would be to ensure an image looks the same (except for the resolution) after resizing.
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.
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/BENJAMIN TOM STATZ/ Examiner, Art Unit 2611
/TAMMY GODDARD/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2611
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