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 .
This action is in response to Amendments and Remarks filed on 01/22/2026
Application is a CON of PCT/JP2022/044973 12/06/2022
Application claims a FP date of 01/24/2022
Claims 1 and 11-12 are independent and have been amended
Claims 1-12 are pending
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 01/22/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive in parts. Amendments to the Title is sufficient to overcome the objection to the title and those objections have been withdrawn. However, with respect to the rejection based on prior art, the amendments are not sufficient to overcome the rejections nor are the Applicant’s arguments persuasive.
On page 9 of the Remarks document, Applicant alleges that Ito does not disclose or suggest a decision processing of determining whether a size of a second range for acquiring distance information is set to within a first range or exceed the first range based on an attribute of the subject where the second range is an autofocus are. Examiner respectfully disagrees, since Ito in ¶0048 clearly discloses that if there are plurality of detected subject, the system control circuit 50 determines a main subject by the size of the subject or it position on the screen and sets the region of the main subject as a focus detection region. Further in ¶0078, Ito discloses that the amount of shift is acquired by performing correlation operation. Since the amount of shift changes in accordance with a distance to a subject, the focus detection is performed on the basis of the amount of shift.
However, to hasten prosecution, Examiner has brought in a new reference that teaches the amended limitation.
In view of the above arguments, Examiner would like to maintain the rejections as detailed in the following action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1-6 and 8-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Applicant disclosed prior art Ito et al. (U.S. Patent Publication Number 2021/0258495 A1) in view of Wiseman et al. (U. S. Patent Publication Number 2019/0266693 A1).
Regarding Claim 11, Ito discloses an imaging apparatus (Fig 1- imaging device 100) comprising:
an imaging element (Fig 1- imaging element 14) that generates image data (In ¶0023, Ito discloses that the imaging element 14 denotes a CMOS sensor and along with A/D converter 16 generates image data); and
a processor (Fig 1- imaging processing unit 20, system control 50),
wherein the processor is configured to execute:
detection processing of detecting (In ¶0028 Ito discloses a detection unit configured to detect a specific subject from an image) a first range including a subject that is a focusing target from the image data where the first range is a subject area (In ¶0048-¶0051, Ito discloses that the system control determines the main subject and sets the subject region as focus detection region; Since “first range” has been disclosed as “subject area” Examiner has pointed to Ito’s disclosure of “subject region”).
determination processing of determining an attribute of the subject (In ¶0048, Ito discloses that the control circuit 50 determines a main subject from the plurality of detected subjects. In ¶0029-¶0030 Ito also discloses that the detection function also includes detecting parts of a face such as pupils, nose or a mouth); and
decision processing of deciding whether a size of a second range for acquiring distance information of the subject is set to be within the first range or to exceed the first range, based on the attribute, wherein the second range is an autofocus area (In ¶0031, Ito discloses that the degree of matching the features is calculated and a region in which the degree of matching is equal to or greater than a predetermined value is defined as a region of a face. In ¶0002, Ito clarifies that the tracked subject region is often the main subjected for focusing in autofocus (AF)).
Even though Ito discloses all the limitation of the claim, Examiner would like to bring in Wiseman, who in a similar endeavor, discloses decision processing of deciding whether a size of a second range for acquiring distance information of the subject is set to be within the first range or to exceed the first range, based on the attribute (Wiseman teaches about a range differentiator that us useful for auto-focusing which provides an image of a scene at various physical depth, a depth differentiator distinguishing portions of the images at depths below a predetermined threshold and providing a depth image and a focus distance ascertainer ascertaining a focus distance based on the depth. Wiseman also teaches about the feature detector operative to identify a feature in an image and a focus distance ascertainer).
Ito and Wiseman are combinable because both are related to imaging devices.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use range differentiator and feature detector as taught by Wiseman in the imaging module disclosed by Ito.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to “perform autofocusing” as disclosed by wiseman throughout in his disclosure.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Ito and Wiseman to obtain the invention as specified in claim 11.
Regarding Claim 1, this is a methods claim that has limitations parallel to the apparatus claim of Claim 11. Claim 1 is rejected on the same grounds as Claim 11.
Regarding Claim 2, Ito in view of Wiseman discloses wherein the detection step and the determination step are performed by using a machine-learned model (In ¶0034-¶0035, Ito discloses that detection based on deep learning can also be performed. And in ¶0123, Ito also discloses that determination of feature or region could be set based on past learning data using A1).
Regarding Claim 3, Ito in view of Wiseman discloses further comprising: an acquisition step of acquiring the distance information of the subject in the second range (Ito, in ¶0138 discloses determining the main subject from the size of the subject or position or a distance from the center of the main subject and the part detected); and a focusing step of bringing the subject into a focusing state based on the distance information (In ¶0069, Ito discloses that the control circuit 50 performs autofocus in the basis of pixel data for phase difference detection obtained from the imaging element which is capable of outputting independent signals from all pixels that are focus detection pixels. In ¶0077-¶0079, he further discloses that the amount of shift of the pair of images acquired, and since amount of shift changes in accordance with a distance to a subject, the focus detection is performed on the basis of the amount of shift).
Regarding Claim 4, Ito in view of Wiseman discloses wherein in the determination step, whether the attribute of the subject corresponds to which object among two or more types of objects is determined (In ¶0029, Ito discloses that the image processing circuit 20 has a face detection function of detecting a person, an animal or a face region, a function of detecting organs of a face such as a pupils, a nose, or a mouth, a whole body detection function), or whether the attribute of the subject corresponds to which part of which object among two or more types of objects is determined (Ito, in ¶0046, discloses that the tracking unit performs tracking on the basis of the subject region corresponding to a specific subject (a part thereof) detected by the detection unit).
Regarding Claim 5, Ito in view of Wiseman discloses wherein the object is a person, an animal, a bird, a train, a car, a motorcycle, a ship, or an airplane (In ¶0029, Ito discloses that the image processing unit 20 has a face detection unit for detecting person, an animal or a face region. In ¶0037 he discloses detecting a train or a car).
Regarding Claim 6, Ito in view of Wiseman discloses wherein in the decision step, the size of the second range varies in a case where it is determined in the determination step that the attribute is a first part of a first object and in a case where it is determined in the determination step that the attribute is a first part of a second object (In ¶0031, Ito discloses that the degree of matching is equal to or greater than a predetermined value is defined as a region of a face or the whole body. This is more clearly explained in the flow chart of Fig 5).
Regarding Claim 8, Ito in view of Wiseman discloses wherein the decision step includes a correction step of correcting the size of the second range (Ito discloses this in ¶0155 and in Fig 6).
Regarding Claim 9, Ito in view of Wiseman discloses wherein in the correction step, the size of the second range is corrected based on a state of the subject, whether or not the subject is a moving object, or reliability of determination of the attribute (Ito discloses this in Fig 6 and in ¶0164 - ¶0171 which illustrates a method of reducing erroneous pupil tracking using the face detection results of embodiment 2).
Regarding Claim 10, Ito in view of Wiseman discloses wherein in the correction step, in a case where the size of the second range exceeds a first threshold value, the second range is reduced, and in a case where the size of the second range is smaller than a second threshold value which is smaller than the first threshold value, the second range is enlarged (Ito discloses this in Figs 5 and 6 and in ¶0161-¶0175 where Ito discloses that is determined if the tracking falls outside a range the process transitions to step S405 and if it falls within the range the process transitions to step S406).
Regarding Claim 12, this claim is a program claim that has limitation parallel to the apparatus claim of claim 10. Claim 12 is rejected on the same grounds as Claim 10.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Applicant disclosed prior art Ito et al. (U.S. Patent Publication Number 2021/0258495 A1) in view of Wiseman et al. (U. S. Patent Publication Number 2019/0266693 A1) as applied to claims 1 and 11 above and further in view of Kanda et al. (U. S. Patent Publication Number 2022/0272271 A1).
Regarding Claim 7, Ito in view of Wiseman fails to clearly disclose wherein in the focusing step, a continuous focusing mode in which a focusing operation is continuously performed is selectively executable as a focusing mode, and in the decision step, the size of the second range varies depending on whether or not the focusing mode is the continuous focusing mode..
Instead in a similar endeavor, Kanda discloses wherein in the focusing step, a continuous focusing mode in which a focusing operation is continuously performed is selectively executable as a focusing mode (Kanda teaches in ¶0002-¶0003 about continuous photography in the case of photographing a moving subject by keeping a varies depending on whether or not the focusing mode is the continuous focusing mode (Fig 18F and 19 explains focus movable ranges in ¶0166-¶0168 and teaches that the CPU estimates a range and sets the focus movable range based on the estimated range in which the subject moves so as to prevent the subject from being out of focus even when the subject moves out of focus movable range).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use focus movable range as taught by Kanda in the imaging module disclosed by Ito in view of Wiseman.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to “prevent subject from being out of focus even when the subject moves out of the movable range” as disclosed by Kanda in ¶0167.
Ito, Wiseman and Kanda are combinable because both are related to imaging devices.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Ito, Wiseman and Kanda to obtain the invention as specified in claim 7.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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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/PADMA HALIYUR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2639 February 24, 2026