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
Response to Amendment
This Office Action is in response to the correspondence on 03/06/2026. Applicant’s argument, filed on 03/06/2026 has been entered and carefully considered. Claims 1-9 are pending.
The 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph, rejection is withdrawn based on the arguments/claim amendments submitted on 09/10/2025.
The application filed on 06/17/2024. Claimed foreign priority to JAPAN 2023-102040 filed on 06/21/2023. The certified copy of priority has been filed on 07/12/2024.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 03/06/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the combination of references being used in the current rejection.
Examiner’s Note
Claims 1-7 refer to "An image processing apparatus”, Claim 8 refers to "A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium”, and, Claim 9 refers to "An image processing method”. Claims 8-9 are similarly rejected in light of rejection of claims 1-7, any obvious combination of the rejection of claims 1-7, or the differences are obvious to the ordinary skill in the art. It is well known in the art that encoding and decoding are reverse processes of video coding method/system.
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 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Seo (US 20180070011 A1) in view of Kimura (US 20160080647 A1) further in view of Strutton et al. (US 20110213670 A1), hereinafter Strutton.
Regarding claim 1, Seo discloses an image processing apparatus comprising: one or more processors and at least one memory, the at least one memory being coupled to the one or more processors and having stored thereon instructions executable by the one or more processors, wherein the execution of the instructions cause the image processing apparatus to function as (Abstract): an acquisition unit configured to acquire a first video (Fig. 1); and a display control unit configured to control display so that a first display area, which is a thumbnail area corresponding to a position on a seek bar for the first video, is larger than a second display area, which is a thumbnail area corresponding to a position on a seek bar for of a second video (Fig. 5, Fig. 15A).
Seo discloses all the elements of claim 1 but Seo does not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section in a case where an angle of view of the first video is larger than an angle of view of the second video.
However, Kimura from the same or similar endeavor teaches in a case where an angle of view of the first video is larger than an angle of view of the second video (Fig. 12).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Seo to incorporate the teachings of Kimura to display satisfactory thumbnail (Kimura, Abstract). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Seo in view of Kimura discloses all the elements of claim 1 but they do not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section different from the first video.
However, Strutton from the same or similar endeavor teaches different from the first video (Fig. 22, [0129]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Seo in view of Kimura to incorporate the teachings of Strutton to display multiple media (Strutton, Abstract). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Regarding claim 2, Seo in view of Kimura further in view of Strutton discloses the image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a calculation unit configured to calculate three-dimensional information about a video image represented by the first video, wherein the calculation unit calculates an enlargement ratio of the first display area, based on the three-dimensional information (Seo, Fig. 5, Kimura, [0023]).
Regarding claim 3, Seo in view of Kimura further in view of Strutton discloses the image processing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a type acquisition unit configured to acquire type information indicating whether the angle of view of the first video is larger than the angle of view of the second video, wherein the calculation unit calculates the enlargement ratio, based on the type information (Seo, Fig. 5, Kimura, Fig. 12, [0261]-[0262]).
Regarding claim 4, Seo in view of Kimura further in view of Strutton discloses the image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the three-dimensional information is viewing angle information about the first video (It is obvious to the ordinary skill in the art).
Regarding claim 5, Seo in view of Kimura further in view of Strutton discloses the image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the three-dimensional information is depth information about the first video (It is obvious to the ordinary skill in the art).
Regarding claim 6, Seo in view of Kimura further in view of Strutton discloses the image processing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a specifying unit configured to specify an attention area in the first video, wherein the three-dimensional information is a size of the attention area (It is obvious to the ordinary skill in the art).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Seo in view of Kimura further in view of Strutton further in view of Hirakawa (US 20080024599 A1).
Regarding claim 7, Seo in view of Kimura further in view of Strutton discloses all the elements of claim 7 but they do not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section the image processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the specifying unit specifies an attention area group including a plurality of attention areas that are spatially or temporally different from each other, and wherein a size of the attention area is a statistics amount based on sizes of the plurality of attention areas included in the attention area group.
However, Hirakawa from the same or similar endeavor teaches wherein the specifying unit specifies an attention area group including a plurality of attention areas that are spatially or temporally different from each other, and wherein a size of the attention area is a statistics amount based on sizes of the plurality of attention areas included in the attention area group ([0118]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Seo in view of Kimura further in view of Strutton to incorporate the teachings of Hirakawa to view desired regions or thumbnails (Hirakawa, Abstract). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Regarding claim 8-9, See Examiner’s Note. Kleinerman et al. (US 20180367840 A1), Fig. 5
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMMAD J RAHMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-7190. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM.
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/Mohammad J Rahman/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487